


Camp Unus Annus

by Whiskey_With_Patron



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Crack Fic, Mentions of Death, Unus Annus, idk he's janus what do you expect, it's literally just the sides at camp unus annus, janus has also possibly killed a man, janus is a scene kid, that's it that's the fic, this is by FAR the stupidest thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whiskey_With_Patron/pseuds/Whiskey_With_Patron
Summary: Virgil is sent off to summer camp, and it's fucking weird. His camp buddy is a scene kid with one green eye and one brown, and half his face is covered in what is either burn scars or really bad eczema. There's an eleven year old who dresses like a baby professor, one kid with a happy attitude that is immune to the musings of the inevitability of death, and a pair of twins that won't stop competing with each other over everything. Also, he's pretty sure the counselors are trying to kill the campers.This is the first summer camp Virgil's ever been to, but he's pretty sure summer camp isn't supposed to include lessons on how to bury a body.These next few days are going to be a wild ride.
Comments: 101
Kudos: 151





	1. Too Many Pickles

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i set an alarm just so i could watch the ending of the goodbye stream and then post this. yes, i am emotional. yes, i will project that onto the very last chapter of this crack fic when i write it because i saved writing that chapter specifically for after Unus Annus was deleted
> 
> also ignore my grammar in the chapter notes, my actual writing isn't like this i sWEAR-
> 
> anyway. i'm gonna miss Unus Annus, so i wrote this while the videos were still up. Campus Annus was my favourite part of the channel so i took some of the videos and put the sides in them. i didn't do this with the HeeHoo video or Mark's Outdoor Escape Room because i didn't have a lot of time and i also had other stuff to write, so i just did the ones i could
> 
> i'll probably update every few days until all the chapters are up, maybe every 3 days idk i'll figure it out

The bus ride to summer camp was fucking weird.

Virgil Tempest leaned back in his seat as one of the head counselors rattled off names from a clipboard. He didn’t want to be here, but since his parents signed him up for this, he didn’t have much of a choice. He was stuck on the bus next to some kid who had his face buried in the pages of a book, surrounded by a shit ton of other kids who wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

“Virgil!”

“Here!” Virgil shouted, raising his hand to make himself seen.

A couple more names were said before the counselor put her clipboard away. The bus started to move, and they were on their way.

A man in a white shirt stood up at the front of the bus. He fiddled with a megaphone for a moment before shouting into it. Virgil winced and covered his ears at the sound.

“Settle down, campers!” the counselor yelled. “We’re on the road, so buckle up!”

Virgil glanced around for a seatbelt. It didn’t seem like there was one on his seat.

“There are no seatbelts!” a kid shouted back.

The counselor didn’t respond to that. “Welcome to Camp Unus Annus! Over the next few days, we’re gonna be showing you all the best tips and tricks to get the most out of your camping experience. Survival tactics, how to stay safe, and most importantly, how to have fun!”

“That’s right!” the counselor in the driver’s seat said. He was speaking over the bus’s intercom in order to be heard, which Virgil thought was a million times better than the megaphone. He wore a black shirt instead of a white one.

“We’ll get your camp uniforms once we arrive,” he said, “and get ready to have a fun filled week of adventure, friendship, and of course, the buddy system! Our number one rule.”

“Our number one rule,” the counselor in white repeated through the megaphone, his voice suddenly harsh and serious.

“Number one rule,” the counselor in black echoed. He leaned into the speaker. “Don’t you ever _fucking_ forget the buddy system. It is the number one rule of surviving in _nature!”_

The counselors were silent for a second. The one lady counselor started fiddling with a video camera.

“Make sure you’re not sitting alone,” the counselor with the megaphone said, tone bright and cheery once again. “The point of camp is to get to know each other, not sit alone in isolation and die in the wilderness without any witnesses. I’m one of your head counselors, Annus, and this is your other head counselor, Unus.” He pointed to the man driving the bus.

“Who’s that lady?” one of the kids shouted, pointing to the woman with the video camera.

“No one you need to know or care about!” Annus said.

“Did you say your name was ‘anus’?” one of the kids piped up.

Annus pointed to them. “You better pray your buddy watches out for you tonight, because I will murder you in your sleep you little shit.”

“Cool!” the kid yelled.

One of the other kids yanked the first one back down into their seat. “Remus, stop!”

Virgil blinked. What kind of fucking summer camp was this? Virgil was pretty sure these counselors could get arrested for threatening kids like this.

Most of the other kids started talking again. Virgil poked his head above the seat in front of him to look around. The bus was nowhere near full. If he had to guess, there might have been about twenty campers.

Virgil shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweater. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t want to talk to anyone here, but he didn’t want to sit around and do nothing.

“Salutations.”

Virgil nearly screamed. He whirled around to face the kid he was sharing a seat with. He had put his book away and was staring at Virgil intently through his glasses. The kid was dressed like a baby professor, with a button up polo shirt and a blue tie.

The boy held out a hand. “I’m Logan. You’re Virgil, correct?”

Virgil hesitated. He placed his hand in Logan’s and shook it once. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Logan pushed his glasses up his nose. “So, why are you here? Did your parents sign you up?”

Virgil’s stomach turned with anxiety. He was sure he was going to stutter over his words or say something stupid, but he forced himself to speak. “Yeah. They want me to get better at talking to other kids. You?”

“My parents want me to be more of an outdoors person. I don’t particularly enjoy nature, although fresh air and vitamin D do provide multiple health benefits that I can’t get while holed up indoors all the time. I simply don’t enjoy being outside in the hot sun with bugs and such, but this trip may provide me with some benefits, such as a bigger social circle and some much needed sun.”

Virgil stared at Logan. This kid spoke like he read dictionaries in his free time.

“You some kinda child genius?” Virgil asked. He was having a hard time believing that this kid might be in seventh grade like Virgil was.

“I suppose I could be considered that,” Logan said. “I am eleven years old and sitting at a university reading level, and I am already working my way through twelfth grade math. How old are you, by any chance?”

“Twelve,” Virgil answered, a little dumbfounded. He was still having trouble with seventh grade math. How was this sixth grader working his way through twelfth grade math?

Virgil wanted to ask some questions, but he was interrupted when Annus’ voice spoke over the bus intercom. “You hungry?” he asked. He seemed to be talking to the other counselor, Unus. Maybe he didn’t know that the intercom was on.

“Yeah, I could take a snack,” Unus said as Annus began to rummage through a bag at his feet.

“I got snacks,” Annus said. “I got a lot of pickles. Do you think I brought too many pickles?”

“Nah, the campers can eat some. Pass a jar around. You got anything else though?”

“I don’t know, I’ve got a lot of pickles,” Annus muttered. “It’s either pickles or this.”

Unus didn’t respond for a moment. “What is that?”

“It’s a beef stick.”

“Gimme the pickles.”

The campers closer to the front of the bus quieted down, their voices replaced by crunching. The person in front of Virgil turned in her seat and held out a jar. “Here.”

Virgil stared at the jar of pickles. “Uh, thanks.” He took it and held it out to Logan. “Pickles?”

Logan hesitated. He plucked a pickle out of the jar and squinted at it as though he’d never seen one before. He brought it to his mouth and took a bite. He scowled as though he’d just eaten a very sour candy.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, that is strange.” He swallowed the one bite of pickle. “I cannot decide if I like that or not.” He smacked his lips, processing the flavour as he eyed the pickle warily. He took another small bite.

Virgil couldn’t hold back a snicker as he watched Logan tentatively eat the pickle. He passed the jar to the kids behind them.

“Do you wanna put on some tunes?” Unus asked, voice quiet over the intercom.

“Music serves no purpose,” Annus said. “If I’m listening to something, it serves a purpose. I don’t listen to music.”

“We can put on an audiobook,” Unus offered. “We’ve also got that vocal warmup CD.” A loud crunching sound came over the intercom as he bit into a pickle. “Sound good?”

Logan grimaced at the pickle in his hand. “I don’t want this,” he muttered.

Virgil glanced around for a garbage can or a bag or anything. There was nothing.

“Can’t throw it out,” he said.

Logan huffed. “Well, what do I do with it then?”

Virgil shrugged. “Eat it?”

“I don’t like it.” He paused, then looked up at the window next to him. He stood and pushed it open. The pickle flew out into the air.

One of the kids gasped as he watched it fly past. “Guys, it’s raining pickles!” He opened his window and stuck his head out.

“Remus!” The kid sitting in front of him turned around and tried to push him back into his seat. “It’s not raining pickles, you dumb fuck!”

“Fuck off, Roman!”

Someone tapped Virgil on the shoulder. Virgil looked down to see the kid in the seat behind him holding out the jar of pickles. Virgil was about to say that they’d already gotten a round of pickles, but he was distracted by the kid’s face. His right eye was brown, but the other was a bright green. The entire left side of his face was pink and scaled over, like a giant burn scar. Or maybe he just had really bad eczema.

Virgil took the jar. “Thanks.” He turned back around and looked at Logan. “Another pickle?”

Logan shook his head. “No. I find them disgusting.”

Virgil shrugged and grabbed a pickle for himself. He’d never tried one before. Might as well try now.

He took a bite. It wasn’t as bad as Logan’s facial expressions had made it seem. He took another bite of pickle and passed the jar to the kid in front of him.

“Welcome to the vocal warmup CD,” said a voice over the intercom. “First, massage the muscle that connects your neck to your jaw and yawn.”

Virgil tuned out the sound of whatever the hell their counselors were doing at the front of the bus and kept eating his pickle. He still heard that kid, Remus, shouting in the back of the bus, while whoever Roman was tried to shut him up. They sounded very similar, although Remus’ voice was higher. He wondered if they were related.

“Hi there!”

Virgil squeaked and turned in his seat. One of the kids sitting right behind him poked his head right over the seat, smiling at Virgil. A pair of round Harry Potter-ish glasses sat on his nose, and a couple curls of orange hair peeked out from under the hood of his cat sweater. A smattering of freckles decorated his cheeks. His face was cute and chubby.

“I’m Patton,” he chirped. “What’s your name?”

Virgil paused. “Uh, I’m Virgil.”

Patton gasped. “What a cool name! Wanna be friends?”

Virgil didn’t want to say no. That would just be rude. “Sure?”

“Nice! My seat buddy said no, but I’m pretty sure he’s just joking. We’re all gonna be friends by the end of the week, I’m sure.” Patton turned to Logan. “Who are you?”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Logan.”

“Do you wanna be friends?”

Logan straightened his glasses. “On average, it takes about fifty hours of being in one’s presence to consider someone a casual friend, ninety hours before believing someone to be a good friend, and over two-hundred hours to become close friends. Considering we have known each other for all of forty seconds, I would not consider us friends.”

Patton’s shoulders slumped. “Oh.” His face brightened again. “What about acquaintances?”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “Hmm. I suppose. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance then, Patton.”

Patton’s eyes sparkled with happiness. “Neat!”

Annus’ voice crackled through the megaphone, interrupting their conversation. “Alright, listen campers. We’re going out in the woods, so one of the things that I want you to know is that there are dangerous things out in the wild.”

“There are hunters,” Unus added over the intercom. “And Bigfoot. Snakes, toads, frogs—”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Annus interjected. “Yes but no. You’re completely misguided here. Yeah, those things are terrifying and deadly, but this is why I thought you’d need the helpful hand of a guide. So I just want to, uh...” He turned around and looked at Unus. “Are you actually going to pay attention? Because this is important.”

Unus craned his neck to look further out the windshield. “We’ve got a turn coming up.”

Annus turned back to the rest of the bus and scrambled with a bunch of paper in his arms. “Okay, the number one thing that you need to be on the lookout for is BATS!” He flipped a paper around to reveal a picture of a bat. He turned it around and shoved it in Unus’ face.

“Hang on, I have to...” Unus tried to look around the paper. “There’s a turn coming up. I have to merge onto an exit.”

“Well I don’t care, this is very important,” Annus insisted. “If you go into the woods without knowing about these particular threats, you will die.”

Unus didn’t respond. Annus lowered the paper. “I feel like you’re not taking your imminent doom seriously.”

“I’m just getting into the right lane,” Unus said.

Annus turned the paper back to the campers. “Bats! Nature’s flying predator. They can hear better than you. They can see better than you.”

“Falsehood!” Logan called. “Bats cannot see well in the—”

“They can bite better than you ever could,” Annus said, cutting him off. “They’ll swoop in, suck your blood, and you’ll be gone.” He pointed to the bat picture he was holding. “You seeing this? You seeing that? They can fly, which is super weird because they don’t even have feathers.”

“There are other animals that can fly or glide without the use of feathers,” Logan said, standing up to make himself heard.

“Like, imagine you stretched out your nutsack,” Annus continued, ignoring Logan, “and tried to fly on that. That’s what they do.”

“Falsehood!” Logan yelled. “Bat wings are in no way comparable to the testicles of a human being—"

“Now how do you avoid a bat?” Annus asked through the megaphone.

“I think the number one tool that you would probably use is a net,” Unus answered. “Probably. To get a bat away.” A smile creeped into his voice. “Or maybe a mitt? Bat, mitt? Baseball?”

Silence fell on the bus. Virgil heard a loud crunch as someone bit into a pickle.

Annus shifted his papers in his arms. “To get away from a bat, number one, don’t go out at night. That’s when they’re the most active. Don’t let any of your parts that have excessive blood flow be exposed. This is the neck, the groin, the penis—none of those can be exposed to the open air at night or even during dusk. It must be full sunlight to purge them, okay? They can’t survive in light.”

“Falsehood!” Logan shrieked. Virgil jumped in his seat.

“The second thing you need to look out for,” Annus continued, “is the most elusive, the one that you wouldn’t think.” He switched out his bat picture for a photo of a squirrel and shoved it in Unus’ face. “The American squirrel!”

Unus leaned around him to look in the bus mirrors. “I just need to get into the other lane...”

Virgil heard the crunch of a pickle. “Are you looking at this?” Annus demanded, voice muffled by food. “Are you seeing the evil that is before you?”

Unus risked a glance to Annus’ papers. “Oh, squirrels, yeah.”

Annus turned his papers back to the campers. “So, at night, you need to watch out for bats. In the daytime, you gotta watch out for squirrels. There’s a theory that bats turn back into squirrels when the sun comes up.”

Logan looked like he was going to protest again, but Virgil grabbed the sleeve of his shirt and tugged him back down into their seat. “Just let it go, Logan. He’s not gonna listen.”

“How do you avoid squirrels?” Annus asked.

“Well, I know how to do that,” Unus said. “But do you know how to do that?”

“I’m not the one being quizzed here.”

“Wait, are you certified? When was the last time you took the test?”

Annus shifted his papers. “Uh, I have permanent certification. I got grandfathered in.”

“I don’t agree with permanent certification,” Unus said. “Things get changed. You gotta stay on your toes.”

Annus turned away from him. “Alright, so you’re gonna die from the squirrels. Good to know. You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He brought out a new paper. “Boom! More people die to deer attacks than shark attacks.”

“An unfair statistic,” Logan grumbled, “considering people are around deer more often than they are sharks. More people die to cows than sharks as well, simply because they keep cows around them. We don’t have farms full of sharks, lowering the average—”

“Deers are highly territorial,” Annus said.

“Deer,” Logan corrected. “The plural of deer is just deer!”

“They could gut you in a second, their antlers are so sharp they could pierce your abdomen and your intestines would come spooling out.”

“I wanna fight a deer!” Remus screeched in excitement at the back of the bus.

“Deer don’t have teeth, do they?” Unus asked.

“I’m pretty sure deer have teeth,” one kid in a pink seater vest said. “There was one episode of Gravity Falls where a demon named Bill Cipher steals the teeth of a deer—"

“It’s not about the teeth!” Annus interrupted. “It’s the antlers and hooves!” He switched around his papers and held up a new one. “Now what is this?”

“I can’t look at it for too long,” Unus said. “I’m driving.”

“It’s snakes! Now what do you do?”

A camper stood up and raised her hand. “Ooh! I know! I know!”

Annus pointed to her. “What do you do?”

“You run!”

“Right! You run as soon as you see or hear it. You have to look, scan, observe, react, and run. L.S.O.R.R.” He grabbed a new paper and held it up to Unus.

“Hang on, I have to go in the other lane.”

“Bears!” Annus shouted into the megaphone. “What kind of bears are we going to encounter in the wild?”

“There are black bears,” Unus said, “grizzly bears, brown bears, polar bears, jungle bears, water bears, uh...”

“What do you do if you see a bear?” Annus questioned.

“Play dead!” a camper piped up.

Logan shot to his feet again. “Falsehood! You make yourself look at big as possible and make noise until it scares the bear off! Intimidate it so it doesn’t attack you!”

“Correct answer!” Annus yelled.

Logan spread his arms. “Thank you for fucking listening!” He flopped back down in his seat next to Virgil.

Annus put down the bear picture and held up a new picture. Virgil craned his neck to see it. It just looked like Annus himself, crouched low to the ground like a caveman, and not wearing any clothes. At least it was blurred out.

“Have you seen this man?” Annus asked. 

“What is it?” Unus muttered.

Annus pointed to the picture. “This just goes to show that sometimes, the most dangerous animal is man.” He set down the picture. “Now, lets go over what we’ve learned. You avoid bats by not going out at night. Avoid squirrels by staying away from the trees. Avoid the antlers and hooves of a deer, run away from snakes, and scare the bears.”

“What about the last one?” Unus asked. “How do you protect yourself from that?”

“Oh, there’s nothing you can do. Completely unpredictable. Just try to stay out of its way.”

The entire bus was silent.

“Hey, lets listen to that vocal warmup CD again,” Unus suggested.

“Yeah, sure.”

Music played over the intercom and the two counselors sang along, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they had just given a bunch of bullshit survival tactics to a bunch of children.

Virgil sighed and sank down in his seat. The kid in front of him twisted around and offered him the jar of pickles again. He took it and dejectedly took another pickle with a sigh. This was going to be the stupidest camp ever.


	2. Pitching A Tent In The Woods But There's A Bear 15 Feet Away

“Okay campers, time to sort out your things and yourselves!’

Virgil raised and eyebrow at Unus as he spoke. Sort out themselves? What did that mean?

“I’ll tell you what it means!” Unus said, as if he had heard Virgil’s thoughts. Virgil took a cautious step back from their counselor.

“Everyone here is going to be sorted as either an Unus or an Annus,” Unus explained to the campers standing in front of him. “Unuses are people who know their limits and don’t try to cross them. They’re not afraid to show emotion and they care about others. Annuses like to test their limits and tend to be very confident individuals. Over the next week, which has been shortened to a few days because the plague is upon us, you will be in one of these two groups and then assigned a buddy. Since there are exactly twenty of you, each Unus will be partnered with an Annus to be their camp buddy!”

“There are twenty-one of us, actually,” Logan interrupted.

“There won’t be for long!” Annus piped up. No one wanted to question what that was supposed to mean.

Unus and Annus each hefted a stack of shirts. Unus’s were all black, and Annus’s were white. Virgil watched as they both approached a camper and studied her. After a moment, Annus grabbed a white shirt and shoved it in the kid’s arms.

The two of them walked around to each camper, giving each one either a black or white shirt. Virgil’s gaze travelled, and he spotted the lady who took roll call on the bus. She leaned against a tree, still messing with a video camera. Virgil had no idea what she was there for.

His vision was blocked when two people stopped front of him. He looked up to see both Unus and Annus staring down at him intently. He shifted his feet and looked down. He didn’t like being stared at.

Then a black t-shirt was being shoved into his hands. “Knew you were an Unus the second I saw you!” Unus exclaimed cheerfully.

Virgil turned his attention to the shirt as Unus and Annus moved on. The camp logo was certainly weird. It was a skull in the middle of a campfire. The words “DEATH IS COMING” were printed right above it.

He sighed and shouldered his backpack. This camp was going to be a fucking weird one.

“Now that everybody’s sorted, it’s time to assign buddies,” Annus announced. “You don’t get to choose your buddy, your buddy will be chosen for you.” He turned to the woman with the camera. “Amy! Come do the honours!”

The woman looked up. She set the camera on the ground and walked over to the campers.

She stopped in front of Logan. He held a white shirt in his arms. Virgil half hoped that he would end up being Logan’s buddy. He was already sort of familiar with him, at least.

“Am I allowed to make a request as to who I want my buddy to be?” Logan asked.

“Nope.” Amy started through the crowd and waved at him to follow her.

Logan reluctantly did so. Amy stopped next to a kid holding a black shirt. “You’re with Remus,” she said.

The kid, Remus, grinned like he just won the lottery. “Hell yeah! Hi, nerd!”

Remus latched onto Logan’s arm. Logan blinked and stared at Remus. “May I be assigned a new buddy?”

Amy, however, had already moved on. Virgil saw her guiding a kid that looked identical to Remus towards Patton, who held a black shirt. Virgil assumed the other kid was Roman, Remus’s brother. Patton smiled and wrapped Roman in a hug. Roman blinked and patted Patton’s shoulder in an awkward attempt to return the hug. Amy pushed a kid in a pink sweater vest, who held a black shirt, over to a kid in a leather jacket who held a white shirt. Sweater vest kid looked the other kid up and down before shuffling away cautiously.

Virgil grimaced. It didn’t seem like most of these people were enjoying the buddies they were assigned. He might get stuck with someone who would hate him.

Someone bumped into him. He snapped his gaze up and saw Amy standing there with a boy who held a white shirt. Virgil recognized those mismatched eyes and the burn scar (or patch of eczema; Virgil still didn’t know which it was). It was the kid Patton had sat with on the bus.

“You’re with Virgil,” Amy said. She promptly moved on to pair up another two campers.

The kid looked Virgil up and down, and Virgil did the same to him. The kid was dressed a little odd. He wore almost all black, which Virgil was sure was going to cause some overheating in the hot sun. His leggings were striped black and white, leading down to a pair of black converse. A neon yellow skirt flared out at his waist. Dozens of bracelets decorated his arms. Virgil couldn’t see the kid’s hair under his black snapback, but he was willing to bet it was dyed some outrageous colour.

The kid raised an eyebrow. “You look emo.”

“You look like a scene kid,” Virgil shot back.

They studied each other for a moment. They both grinned and shook hands. “I’m Virgil,” Virgil said.

“Janus.” Janus stepped back and looked down at Virgil’s sweater. “Did you sew the patches onto your sweater yourself?”

“Yeah. Did you make all those bracelets?”

He pointed to the ones on his right arm. “Only these ones. The bracelets on my other arm were all given to me.”

“Okay campers!”

The campers all quieted down and turned to face their counselors. Unus and Annus stood in front of them surrounded by canvas bags made for tents. Virgil had no idea how those bags had all gotten here. He hadn’t seen any with the luggage on the bus. He decided not to ask where those tents had all come from.

“The first thing to do when you’re camping is to set up your tent,” Annus said. “It’s going to protect you from the elements and from any unwanted...”

He paused and turned to look at the trees. Everyone was silent, and then Virgil heard it. A faint sniffing sound met his ears, like a large animal was lurking nearby.

“Animals,” Annus finished. “But, as you may know, you may not always go into the woods with a hundred percent of your form or function.”

“That’s exactly right,” Unus agreed. “Many things can harm you out in the wild. You have to be very careful, which, again, is why you should always travel with a buddy.”

“But even being with a buddy can’t protect you from everything,” Annus added. “You’ve got to stay alert. Imagine this: you and a friend are out looking at birds in the woods. You’ve got your binoculars, your friend has their, uh...” He waved his hand, as if looking for a word. “Hearing horn? And there they are, beautiful birds. Blue footed boobies. But they aren’t just boobies. They’re booby _traps_. Those birds are bombs. They blow up. Shrapnel goes into your eyes. The horn amplifies the explosion and deafens you.”

Unus brought a handful of blindfolds and a handful of earplugs out from behind his back. “One’s blind. One’s deaf. Annuses, you will be blindfolded. Unuses, your ears will be plugged. Your goal is to build your tent with your buddy’s help. Everyone come get a blindfold or a pair of earplugs and a tent to build!”

The campers all clustered around the two counselors to grab their stuff. Virgil spotted Logan in the crowd with an excited Remus clinging to his arm. Logan shot Virgil a look that screamed “HELP ME”. Virgil just shrugged in response.

Virgil grabbed a canvas tent bag. Janus walked back up to him with a blindfold in one hand and a pair of earplugs in the other. “Here.” Janus held out the earplugs.

Virgil took them and shoved them in his ears while Janus sorted out his blindfold. The sound around him disappeared, as if someone had pressed a mute button on a TV.

“This is gonna suck,” Virgil said. He couldn’t hear himself, but his own voice rumbled in his ears.

Janus, blindfold on, turned around in a full circle as if looking for something. He mouthed something to Virgil, but Virgil had no idea what it was.

“What?” Virgil asked.

Janus repeated it, but Virgil still had no idea what he said. Virgil faintly heard Unus shouting something. He looked up to see their counselors standing with their own tent bag. Annus had a blindfold over his eyes. Unus finished speaking and held his hand up for a high five, but Annus, unable to see, didn’t return it.

Virgil leaned down and unzipped his and Janus’s tent bag. He rolled it out to reveal the parts to the tent. The canvas that made up the bag was probably meant to be the outside cover.

Virgil reached up and grabbed Janus’ arm. “I’ve got the main structure of the tent,” he said. “I’m gonna need you to help me build it.”

Janus was still glancing around frantically. He flailed around for Virgil and finally latched onto Virgil’s sweater sleeve. He said something that Virgil couldn’t hear.

“What?” Virgil asked.

Janus repeated it. Virgil furrowed his brow. “You think you what?”

Janus said it again. “You like pears?” Virgil asked. He doubted that’s what Janus said, but that was all he could think of. Janus said it again, more firmly this time.

“You like pears,” Virgil decided.

Virgil was sure Janus was rolling his eyes behind his blindfold. “You want to share?” Virgil asked. “I mean, I’m sure we will be sharing the tent. We’ve only got one and we’re building it together, so I’m pretty sure that’s the point of this activity.” He turned back to the tent. “Okay, I need you to grab the bottom of it.”

Janus visibly sighed, but he crouched down and did as Virgil requested. “No, not there,” Virgil said. “Just feel around, don’t tug on it too much.”

Janus poked Virgil’s arm. He said something that Virgil couldn’t hear.

“One more time,” Virgil said.

Janus repeated himself, but slowly. “You think you heard a _bear?”_ Virgil asked.

Janus nodded frantically. “Pretty sure there aren’t bears in these woods,” Virgil said. He turned back to the tent. “I think this is the top of the tent, hang on.”

Janus spread his arms in exasperation. However, he helped Virgil unfold the tent and get it mostly upright. The poles were already attached to the main tent, thank fuck. Threading the poles through the lining of the tent would be difficult with only one person who could see.

“Hang on, I see how it works,” Virgil said. He shifted the tent so it was more or less standing. “There’s another pole here. Hold it, we have to keep it upright. Janus, grab the other pole. Janus?”

Janus waved a hand to get Virgil’s attention. He said something. Virgil blinked, trying to decipher what he said.

“No, we will share,” Virgil assured him. He lifted part of the tent. “See, we’ve got two poles here, and these—”

He stopped when he noticed Janus talking. “Speak slower,” Virgil requested.

Janus said it again. “No, you can’t see,” Virgil confirmed, because he was pretty sure Janus was saying something about his lack of sight.

Virgil looked down at the tent pole he was holding. “We have to extend these things out, so feel for the poles. You have to extend them.”

Janus smacked Virgil’s arm. Virgil looked up, and Janus pointed behind Virgil. Virgil turned to see the bushes rustling.

“I see something moving in the grass,” Virgil said.

He turned back to Janus. “What do you see?” Janus mouthed. That was easier to make out. Virgil was getting used to this, sort of.

“I don’t see anything yet, just rustling in the bush. We should probably work fast.”

Virgil peeked around the tent to see Janus bending a pole in a way that it shouldn’t be bent. Virgil hurried over to him and gently took the pole from his hands. “Don’t bend it that way, don’t bend it that way.”

Janus let go and felt around the horizontal pole at the top. “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Virgil said. “You don’t need to bend it.”

Janus found the part of the pole that connected with a another and bent it inwards. “Like that?” he asked.

“No, that was already the way it was supposed to be. You’re not listening.”

“I am listening,” Janus argued. “This feels like it needs to straighten.”

“No, it goes in like a house shape.”

Janus started feeling around with one hand. “Where’s the front of it?”

Virgil glanced down at the side of the tent he was in front of. There was an opening in the canvas. “Here’s the front.” He craned his neck to look at the opposite side. It seemed like there was also an opening there, too. “Well, actually, either could be the front.”

“What do you mean, either could be the front?” Janus asked. “There’s a front!”

“Look, the basic shape is up!” This was getting frustrating. “It’s structurally sound. We need to secure the poles.”

Janus was busy feeling around the tent. He pointed to one of the openings. “Is this the front?”

“Yes.”

“This is the front?”

“Yes!” Virgil grabbed the stakes and the small plastic hammer that came with the tent. He held them out. “I’m giving you a job,” he said. “Here are the stakes.” Janus flailed around and finally closed his hands around the stakes. “And here is the mallet.” Virgil held it out for Janus to grab. “I’m gonna leave this job to you, okay?”

“What do you mean?” Janus asked.

“You have to hammer the bottom of the tent into the ground with the stakes,” Virgil explained. “Feel around for the things. You’ve got it. You can do this, alright?”

Janus whipped his head around to look at the bushes. He pointed the plastic mallet at them. He didn’t say anything, but he shook the mallet threateningly at the bushes before crouching down and feeling around for the flaps to hammer into the ground.

As Janus took care of that, Virgil grabbed one random pole off the ground that wasn’t attached to the others. “The thing that I’m not sure about is how we get this—wait, did this come with instructions?” Virgil crouched down to the unrolled canvas bag and rummaged through it, searching for an instruction manual.

He turned back to Janus when he failed to find instructions. “How you doing?”

“I got one in!” Janus said. He swung his mallet over to point at the bushes and said something else.

“You’re doing a great job,” Virgil assured him. He turned to grab the two poles that weren’t attached to the tent. What the hell was he supposed to do with these? He was pretty sure they were supposed to go on the top somewhere.

The entire tent started to tilt the other way. “Whoa,” Virgil said, “wait, what are you doing?” He walked around the tent to Janus. “You’re making it fall, what are you doing?”

“What did I do?” Janus asked.

Virgil grabbed the tent and straightened it out. “You’re goofing this whole thing up, man.”

“I am not goofing this whole thing up,” Janus huffed. He proceeded to hammer a crooked stake into the ground.

The bushes rustled a little ways away. Virgil glanced around. Some of the other campers seemed to have noticed it too. Roman was facing the general direction of the bushes while Patton obliviously drove the stakes of their tent into the ground. Remus was aggressively stomping the stakes of his tent into the ground while Logan frantically smacked his shoulder, yelling something about the bushes. A few other blindfolded campers were glancing up in the direction of the bushes while their deafened buddies focused on setting up their tents. Something rustled in the bushes.

“Janus, I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Virgil called. “I think we’re being watched. We gotta go fast.”

Virgil picked up the unrolled canvas bag and walked around to Janus, only to see him with his shirt caught on a thin branch from the tree they were next to, flailing wildly as branches scratched at his face.

“What the fuck,” Janus hissed. “What the fuck! What the fuck!”

“You’re not even close to the tent,” Virgil said. “Turn around.”

“I’m stuck!” Janus said.

“Just turn around!”

“There’s a tree!”

“No, you’re facing the tree. Turn around!”

Janus slowly shifted around. “Go forward,” Virgil prompted.

“It’s just tree!” Janus argued.

“No, just go ahead. It’s right in front of you.”

Janus waved his arms until he hit the tent. He lowered his hands to the ground and started hammering another stake into the dirt.

Virgil picked up the two small stray poles. How was he supposed to put these together?

He decided to ignore them for now and picked up the canvas cover. “Are you almost done? We gotta put this raincoat on it.”

Janus waved a hand to get Virgil’s attention. “Is this supposed to protect us from bears?”

“Tents protect you from the elements, and bear is one of the elements. Earth, fire, water, and bear.” Virgil shook out the canvas so it was flat. He draped it over the top of the tent as Janus moved onto the last stake.

Virgil proceeded to cover the tent with the canvas. He saw Janus stand up out of the corner of his eye, but he thought nothing of it. Janus started waving his arms at the bushes.

Virgil crouched down. “Oh, there are little clips down here.” He clipped the canvas cover to the bottom of the tent. He moved around to clip the next corner of the canvas to the tent.

He saw the canvas ripple as if someone was hitting it. He looked up to see Janus smacking the tent with his hammer to get Virgil’s attention. Janus waved his arms towards the bushes.

“What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

Janus yelled something. Virgil furrowed his brow, trying to decipher what he said.

“You don’t have a lot of arm hair, no,” he agreed. “You might grow some when you’re older.” He turned back to the tent to clip the canvas to it, but he paused when he saw something moving in the bushes. His heart skipped a beat. “Janus, don’t move a muscle, okay? There’s a bear. I don’t want you to freak out.”

Janus threw his arms in the air as if he was exasperated. He said something else that Virgil couldn’t make out.

“The tent is almost done,” Virgil assured him. “We’ve pretty much completed the tent. There’s nothing left to do, so we should probably get in.”

Janus kept repeating something, but Virgil didn’t know what it was. Virgil eyed the bear nervously, although he was about ninety percent sure that it wasn’t an actual bear. It looked more like a person in a bear costume. But what did he know? He’d never seen an actual bear in real life before. Maybe bears just looked like that.

Janus repeated what he was trying to say. “What colour is the bear?” Virgil guessed.

“What colour bear?” Janus repeated.

Virgil squinted. “I don’t fuckin’ know, dude.” He leaned down to unzip the opening of the tent. “Let’s just get in the tent.”

As soon as it was open, he grabbed Janus’ arm and pulled him into the tent. Janus stumbled and toppled to the ground inside the tent. Virgil quickly zipped the opening shut.

He took a deep breath. Well, they weren’t about to die, at least.

He looked down at the black camp shirt that he was still carrying with him. He took off his backpack and shucked off his sweater, then pulled the shirt on over his current shirt. It was a little big on him, but he could work with that.

Janus smacked his arm. He raised a hand and mimed taking out earplugs.

Virgil took the plugs out of his ears. All the sound around them came flooding back at once. “What is it?”

“Are we done the activity?” Janus asked.

“Yeah, I think so. We built the tent at least. Don’t think any bears are gonna get in here.”

Janus grabbed his blindfold and tugged it off his head. His snapback fell off, revealing messy bleached blond hair. Bright green streaks fell into his face. “You are a fucking idiot,” he said.

“That’s fair.” Virgil set his backpack in the corner of the tent. “You think everyone else is okay?”

“I hope so.” Janus crawled over to the entrance of the tent and unzipped it enough to poke his head out. “I don’t see any bears.”

“Should we go out and check on everyone else?”

Janus peeked out further. “Yeah, I guess. My sleeping bag is out there anyway, so I kind of have to go out.”

“Oh shit, mine too.”

The two of them clambered back out of the tent. Everyone else’s tents seemed to be put up already, including their counselors’. Most of the campers were tentatively peeking out of their tents, glancing around for the bear that they had seen. Their counselors stood outside their own tent, blindfold and earplugs removed.

“Come on out, campers!” Unus shouted. “Everything’s safe, don’t worry.”

Everyone left their tents. “That was your first team bonding activity,” Annus announced. “There will be plenty more to come over the next few days, but for now, it’s almost supper time. Amy will get a fire started while all of you settle into your tents with your buddies.”

Virgil glanced at Janus, who was busy shoving his snapback onto his head. “You’re sure there was a bear?”

“Oh, no, because my hearing is so bad that I just _imagined_ I heard a bear,” Janus said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I am one hundred percent sure that there was a bear.”

Virgil scanned the bushes. There didn’t seem to be anything there now.

“Looks like we’re good now. Come on, let’s get our stuff into the tent.”


	3. A Bear Attacked Us In The Middle Of The Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is probably the dumbest chapter in this entire fic. enjoy the chaotic bullshit

Virgil woke to the sounds of a rampaging bear.

He sat up in his sleeping bag and blinked wearily. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know or care,” Janus grumbled. “Go back to sleep.”

“No, I think there might actually be a bear in the camp.” He didn’t know exactly what a bear sounded like, but he was pretty sure those snuffling sounds were very bear-like.

“Oh, and who didn’t believe me when I said I heard a bear, huh? If we die it’s your fault. Now go back to sleep.”

“It’s a bear attack!” the counselors’ voices shouted from outside the tent.

“Oh, yay,” Janus mumbled sarcastically. “Kill me now.”

“We’re going to walk you through every step you need to survive a bear attack in a tent out in the woods out in the camping site!” Unus’s voice shouted. “If you follow these steps, you will surely be safe and sound.”

“So its not a real bear attack,” Virgil concluded. “This is a stupid camp activity in the middle of the night.”

“Sounds like it,” Janus groaned. He sat up in bed, blinking furiously.

“Step number one,” Annus’s voice said. “Evaluate. Determine which type of bear that is attacking you.”

“Okay.” Janus cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, what kind of bear are you?”

Virgil heard two animalistic grunts from outside. “Two grunts!” shouted Patton’s voice. “That means it’s a grizzly!”

“A real bear can’t actually understand you and respond accordingly,” Logan’s voice protested.

The bear grunted again. “Ah, three grunts,” Patton corrected. “A polar bear.”

“Shit, I can’t fight a polar bear!” Remus complained. “There goes all my nighttime plans.”

“Now,” Unus said, “when you’re dealing with polar bears, the biggest thing you want to do is make sure that you’re covered head to toe in as much armor as possible. That’s why you have sleeping bags!”

“Perfect protection against polar bears,” Annus confirmed. “They can’t smell you, therefore they don’t even know where you are.”

“Falsehood!” Logan said. “Bears have a much better sense of smell than humans, and can likely smell you even through a thick sleeping bag.”

“Step number two,” Annus continued. “Try to maintain silence, and maybe it’ll go away on its own.”

The entire camp was silent. Then Virgil heard the rustling of a canvas tent, accompanied by angry bear snuffling.

“Step two failed!” Annus announced. “Which means we need to move on to step three. Tell them about step three.”

Unus’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the bear. “Now, step three is the most dangerous process. Abandon all coverage plans, because clearly it’s not gonna work.”

“Now you don’t need to worry, because your tent is safe so long as the bear doesn’t claim it as its own, thereby attracting other bears to competition.”

Virgil heard a squeak. He and Janus shared a confused glance. Something hit the side of their tent. “Are... are there mice charging the tent?” Virgil whispered.

Janus shrugged. He went to unzip the tent, but Virgil grabbed his wrist to stop him. “No, we’re safe in here. Stay inside.”

Another squeak. “Jesus,” Janus muttered. “Is it calling the woodland creatures to make suicide runs?”

“I think it might be. Do bears have that kind of power?”

There was another squeak as something hit the tent. “Apparently,” Janus said.

“Okay,” Annus called, “these are weak attacks. We don’t need to worry about this. These tents are very strong. That’s why it’s very important when you go shopping for your tent—or you’re finding your tent, wherever that may be—you get one that’s triple layered, made of the highest quality material. That thing can’t even bite its way through these. We’re safe and sound.”

“Get fucked, bear!” Remus’s voice cackled.

“Yeah, get fucked!” another kid shouted.

“You suck, bear!”

“You’re a stupid bear,” Remus taunted. “He can’t get in here.”

“Be nice to the bear,” Patton whined. “He’s doing his best.”

Roman groaned. “But this is boring. I might as well read you a bedtime story.”

“You can read?” Logan said.

“It seems we’re safe,” Annus said. “Without any higher calibre weapon, that thing is basically dead in the water. We can just wait it out.”

Silence fell on the camp again. Janus heaved a sigh. “This was stupid. I’m going to sleep.”

A quiet bang met Virgil’s ears and his heart stuttered. Something else hit the tent. He looked up and saw a small hole in the canvas.

“Does the bear have a paintball gun?” Janus whispered.

“No, the bear has a gun,” Virgil corrected. Another hole ripped through the canvas. “Oh, the bear has a gun,” Virgil said.

“The bear has a gun?”

“The bear has a gun!”

“What do we do when the bear has a gun?” Janus shouted.

“Uh, the bear has a gun!” was all Virgil could find the words to say.

“Okay!” Unus yelled. “Okay, oh my god, this is fine. We can get out of this. Just make sure you cover all the important parts of your body. The smaller the target, the harder it is for a bear to get you. Right? That’s how it works, right?” Virgil heard a wet splash. “That was water, right?” Unus squeaked.

“Worse,” Annus said. “The bear has marked its territory. It’s going to call other bears to the area. Oh no. Okay, step five!”

“We didn’t even go through step four!” Logan protested.

“Step five is the emergency step,” Annus continued. “You would never do this unless you were in this dire situation. Now, what you would have done before is you would have picked up all the stakes in the corner of your tent—”

He interrupted himself with a scream. A bear grunted furiously as canvas rustled outside. The rustling stopped after a few seconds.

Virgil heard the click of a flashlight. “I’m going to go take a look,” Annus said. He unzipped the tent. “I... all I see is plastic. What’s going on?”

“You need to push aside the cover,” Unus said. “We’ve got the rain tent on.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” There was a pause, then a shriek. “The bear is out there! There is definitely a bear out there! We’re going to move! It’s time!”

Unus sounded like he was struggling to be heard over the snuffling of the bear. “In this event, what you will do, is just run. We just gotta move. Roll the tent!”

Virgil raised an eyebrow as he heard canvas moving. “Should we... go outside and look?”

“Why not?” Janus unzipped the tent and stepped out. Virgil followed.

Once outside, they saw that a lot of other campers had the same idea. Almost all of them were standing in the grass in their pyjamas, watching one tent writhe across the ground. The counselors’ voices shouted from inside it. The tent slowly moved across the ground as they presumably tried to run inside the tent. There was no sign of a bear anywhere.

“This is where it’s important to remember where your tent was when you pitched it,” Annus said from inside the mess of canvas. “We know we’re in an open field. This is going to piss the bear off so much, because it’s like ‘ah, my meal is getting away’, which will discourage the bear.”

“Yeah,” Unus agreed. “And the bear is going to think ‘oh, man, all that hard work they did to make the tent was all for naught’, but it’s okay because we know how to make another tent. We can make as many tents as we want. We could make so many tents.”

Virgil watched as Roman held up a camera to record a video of the tent rolling away through the field. The campers all witnessed the tent crash into a fence.

“What is that?” Annus asked. “What did we just hit? What the fuck is this? Is this a tree?”

“No, this is the fence,” Unus realized. “We have to get over the fence.”

Janus leaned over to talk to Virgil. “Ten bucks says they fall over the fence and die.”

“I say they get to the next fence and then die,” Virgil said.

“Bet.”

The tent wriggled. “You go first,” Annus said. “We gotta get on the other side of the fence and then we’re safe.”

“Okay.” One side of the tent flopped over the fence.

“Wait, I’m being crushed!” Annus’s strained voice gasped. “I’m being crushed on the fence! There’s only one way for me to come over!”

“No, Mark, don’t fall on top of me!”

“There’s only one way, Ethan! There’s only one way!”

The other side of the tent flopped over. “We’re good!” Unus said. “Okay, let’s keep rolling.”

“Just keep rolling, just keep rolling,” Annus sang under his breath. “Just keep rolling, rolling, rolling.”

Unus joined in the singing as they rolled their tent across the field. The campers got closer to the fence so they could still hear the mindless drivel coming from their counselors’ mouths. Their “advice” was likely totally useless and the campers would never use any of this information in the future, but watching two adults roll in a tent to run away from a bear that clearly wasn’t there was pretty entertaining.

“At this point, the bear should be very intimidated by your skill and athleticism,” Unus shouted.

“It thinks we’re not two small creatures, but one larger creature,” Annus said.

“Because bears are stupid!”

“They’re stupid idiots! They’re so dumb!”

“They don’t even know what we’re capable of!”

“Witness our power!”

They bumped into the next fence over. “What is this?” Annus muttered.

“I think we hit a pole,” Unus said.

“No, wait, that’s fence.”

Unus laughed. “Stupid bear. Fuckin’ stupid bear.”

“Stupid idiot,” Annus agreed.

Virgil and the rest of the campers just watched as the tent writhed and flopped over the fence. “I hope they’re okay,” Patton mumbled.

“They sound kind of like demons,” Remus observed.

Logan raised a brow. “You know what demons sound like?”

“Oh, you do not want to know what Remus has done with demons,” Roman sighed. “I’ve met Satan in our living room. He’s actually a nice guy, if you can believe it.”

“The bear should be gone now!” Unus said from the tent. “But in the case that it’s not, just keep going!”

“Don’t stop going, you’ve got all night to survive!”

“Right, because we all know that bears are afraid of the sunlight. They can’t handle the intense heat.”

Logan pushed his glasses up his nose. “Falsehood, bears are not nocturnal animals. They can be seen awake both in the daytime and at nighttime, but most commonly during the day.”

“Don’t give up, Mark,” Unus urged.

“It’s a little steep,” Annus argued. “Hang on, it’s a little steep.” The tent rustled. “We will never die. Unus Annus! Unus Annus!”

“Unus Annus!” Unus chanted. “Unus Annus!”

The campers hopped over the fence to follow their counselors from a safe distance. Virgil turned to help Janus over the fence after her hopped over. The tent finally stopped. “We’re pretty far away at this point,” Unus said, breathing heavily. “We’re going to try to break through the tent. So we have to find the weakest spot of the tent and destroy it.”

“We only keep the strongest parts,” Annus heaved.

“Right there, that part is mesh. That might be the window. That might be the weakest part of the tent.”

In the dim light of the flashlight in their tent, Virgil saw them kicking at the tent. “So, who won our bet?” he asked Janus.

“I have no idea,” Janus answered.

“Rip it open,” Annus said. “We’re running out of oxygen.”

The tent ripped open. Unus crawled out and scrambled to his feet. He ran into the field. “We did it!”

“Ethan,” Annus gasped. He sounded like he was struggling to breathe. “Ethan, help. Ethan.”

“I’ve done it,” Unus said, chest heaving as he ran. “I’ve done it. I have escaped.”

“Ethan,” Annus called. “Ethan. I’m in the tent. You ruined the air integrity. Ethan, it’s dark.” His voice trailed off into incomprehensible gasps.

“Unus Annus,” Unus cheered. “You have witnessed my might!”

The campers watched their one counselor run off into the night while the other suffocated to death in a tent. Virgil had no idea what the hell happened to the bear, or that other lady, Amy. Had there even been a bear in the first place? Also, if Amy was still out here, why wasn’t she helping? Would Amy have to replace Annus if he died in the tent?

Janus sighed. “Well, this was dumb. I’m going back to sleep.” He turned and tried to climb back over the fence, but he yelped and slipped on a post. “Virgil, little help?”

“Oh, I gotcha, kiddo,” Patton said. He picked Janus up and hoisted him to the top of the fence. Janus squeaked in surprise when he suddenly found himself up on top of the fence.

Janus clambered over the fence. He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Patton.”

Virgil hopped over the fence after everyone else. “What are you going to do with that video?” Virgil asked as Roman turned off his camera.

Roman shrugged. “Not sure.”

“Upload it to YouTube,” Remus suggested. “Their misery will drag in views.”

Logan nodded thoughtfully, scratching his chin. “Yes, I believe someone’s near death—or, actual death, possibly—would attract people to your video. You could go viral with this.”

Roman’s eyes lit up. “Internet fame. Nice.”

“Well I hope that bear is okay,” Patton said. “He seemed very kind.”

“The bear shot at us with a gun,” Virgil reminded him.

“Maybe it was a paintball gun. We don’t know.” Patton skipped off to his tent after Roman. “Goodnight, you guys. See you in the morning!”

Virgil and Janus walked side by side as they made their way back to their tent. “I swear to god,” Janus grumbled, “If we get woken up at ass o’clock in the morning for some stupid bullshit camp activity even though a counselor just possibly died, someone is getting murdered.” He didn’t sound like he was kidding.

Virgil crawled into the tent. “Agreed.”


	4. How To Rescue A Cat From A Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to update this a couple days ago but i forgot, and then i had an earlier work shift so i couldn't update yesterday, WHOOPS

“Good morning, campers!”

Virgil groaned and rolled over in his sleeping bag. God, he’d nearly forgotten he was stuck in this hellscape of a summer camp.

Janus mumbled in his sleep and turned over in his sleeping bag. Virgil reached out and nudged him. “Dude, get up. It’s morning.”

Janus raised his head. His green and blond hair stuck up in all directions, and his eyes weren’t even open yet. “Fuck this bullshit, man,” he muttered.

Virgil grabbed his backpack and started looking for some clothes to wear. He tugged on the camp shirt he’d been given yesterday and pulled his sweater on over top. He didn’t know how hot it was going to be outside, but he didn’t care. His sweater was part of his aesthetic, and he was not going to take it off under any circumstances.

Virgil was busy applying copious amounts of black eyeshadow under his eyes when he heard Janus unzip the tent. “Come on, emo, we gotta stick together.”

Virgil snapped his compact mirror shut and shoved it back into his bag, deciding that was good enough for now. He scurried out of the tent after Janus.

They both blinked furiously in the bright sunlight. At least Janus had a snapback to block the sun, though. Virgil didn’t, so he was stuck squinting through the light until his eyes adjusted.

“Salutations, Virgil.”

Virgil blinked. A person stood in front of them, and it took him a moment to see that it was Logan wearing his white camp shirt. Remus clung to Logan’s back like a koala. Logan didn’t seem to have any trouble supporting his weight.

“Hey, dorks!” Remus practically screeched.

Janus stared at Logan and Remus. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Logan,” Logan said. “This is my assigned buddy, Remus. That woman—Amy, I believe her name is—has already started a fire in the fire pit and begun making breakfast. I was wondering if the two of you would like to accompany us to the fire so I don’t have to be stuck alone with this... how do I put this lightly... absolute fucking maniac.”

“Did you know that dork means whale penis?” Remus asked. “I called both of you whale penises, is what I’m saying.”

Janus and Virgil exchanged a wary glance. “I guess,” Virgil said.

Logan’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.” He turned and made his way through the mess of tents with Remus on his back. The other two followed.

Breakfast was uneventful, which was a relief to Virgil. He didn’t want to have to deal with more shit than he already had to at this stupid camp.

However, one odd thing he found about breakfast was that neither of the counselors were around. Amy was the only adult there, and none of them were even sure if she was an official counselor. She didn’t say anything as she put slices of bread into a sandwich holder and held it over the fire. She silently put slices of toast on paper plates and handed them to the campers one by one. Virgil hadn’t really expected to see either of them, in all honesty. He thought Unus got eaten by bears and Annus suffocated in the tent. However, he didn’t want to be at camp with only one adult to take care of them.

By the time the fire died down, most of the campers were almost done with their breakfast, Virgil included. He set his paper plate down and glanced around the clearing. He still didn’t see either of their counselors anywhere.

Patton raised a hand. “What are we doing today, Miss Amy?” he asked.

Amy shrugged. She poked at the fire with a stick.

Patton lowered his hand and pouted. Roman patted his shoulder to comfort him.

“Hello campers!”

Everyone turned to face the trails near the clearing. Unus and Annus were both running down the hill towards them, side by side, in perfect unison. Virgil was surprised to see that neither of them were dead.

“Make sure you’ve got your buddy with you,” Unus shouted. “Because this morning, we’re doing a fun team-building activity!”

They slowed to a stop near the fire pit. “Make sure you’ve got your buddy with you at all times,” Annus reminded them, “to watch your back and make sure you’re okay. If you do that, you’ll be ready for Camp Unus Annus.”

“Get ready campers,” Unus said. “It’s gonna be a hell of a day.”

Logan stared at their counselors. “This is going to be awful,” he whispered.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Remus said, his voice much louder than Logan’s.

“As we were saying, the buddy system is vital when you’re out in nature,” Unus said. He and Annus started towards one of the trees and waved for the campers to follow them. Everyone did, some more reluctant than others.

“Today,” Unus continued, “we will present a scenario to you that could easily happen out in the wild. And it’s a perfect example of what happens when you don’t have a buddy.”

He reached behind the tree and grabbed something. He smiled and held it up. It looked like a package for some kind of weird blow up toy.

“Cat stuck in a tree,” he said.

“Fortunately, we have a buddy,” Annus added with a smile. “With each other. But this cat doesn’t.” He turned to Unus. “What’s the lesson?” he whispered. “Are they gonna die? Wouldn’t that be the lesson? Let them die?”

Unus shrugged. “I guess?”

“We teach people that if they don’t go out with a buddy, they’ll die?” He tapped the toy package. “They—it needs to die. That would be the lesson, right?”

Unus nodded. “Oh, yeah, because...”

“You can’t count on two random strangers to rescue you,” Annus finished.

“Yeah.”

Annus looked at Amy. “Lesson done? Is the activity done?”

“You should probably actually do something,” she said. She was messing with the video camera again.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Unus looked at the toy in his hands. He fumbled with the package for a moment before he managed to tear it open. He tossed the package aside and handed the contents to Annus.

Annus stared at the balloon like toy in his hands. “This is a Wubble. This is a fuzzy Wubble. Do I have to blow it up? Am I alone on this? Am I doing it?”

“Yeah, sure man.” Unus smiled at the campers. “While he’s doing that, some of you will be split from your buddies for this activity!”

Patton raised a hand. “But I thought you said—”

“This activity is to demonstrate what can happen when you don’t have a buddy,” Unus interrupted. “Some of you will be separated in order to form groups of three with another pair of buddies. Amy and I will separate some of you while Annus over here makes a third buddy for the two of us.”

Amy lowered her camera. She and Unus started going through the campers and separating some of them. Virgil sort of hoped that he wouldn’t get separated from Janus. He was already familiar with him, and he kind of wanted to stick with him.

However, luck was not on his side. Amy walked up to the two and motioned for Virgil to follow her. Virgil gave Janus a look of exasperation before trudging after her, hands jammed in his sweater pockets. She led him over to Patton and Roman.

“Hey there, kiddo!” Patton beamed. “Glad to have you with us.”

Roman gave Virgil a once over. “Hello, Doctor Gloom. What’s with the emo getup?”

“What’s with your face?” Virgil shot back.

Roman’s jaw dropped. “Well, I never!”

“Okay!” Unus shouted. He held up the toy Annus had blown up. It looked like a fuzzy bouncy ball that vaguely resembled a cat. “The person in your group who was separated from their buddy will be paired up with the other person in their group of the same... house? Faction?” He turned to Annus. “What is it when people are split into either Unus or Annus?”

“I don’t think it matters.” Annus looked at the campers. “Anyway, if there are two Unuses in your group, they will be paired together and the Annus will be stuck in the tree. If there are two Annuses in your group, they will be paired together and the Unus will be in the tree.”

Unus tossed the cat ball to Annus. “And here’s another lesson about being in the wilderness. It doesn’t give a damn about you. Arrogance will get you nowhere in the woods. You have to be on your toes and be prepared for anything that might happen.”

Annus reared back and threw the cat toy into the tree they were next to. It thudded against a branch and came plummeting back down.

“We gotta get this thing up there,” Unus muttered.

“Everyone find a tree!” Annus shouted as he picked up the toy. “The odd man out in your group needs to climb it and get stuck, and the other two need to safely get you down!”

The groups dispersed. Patton skipped off towards a tree, and Roman and Virgil followed. Patton put his hands on his hips and looked up at the tree they’d approached. “Okay, Ro. You have to get in the tree.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Roman grumbled. He stared up at the tree. “I don’t think I can reach the branches.”

“I’ll boost you,” Virgil offered.

Roman scoffed. “No, I can do it myself.” He made a running jump for the lowest branch. His fingertips barely grazed it.

“Well, camp is all about teamwork!” Patton chirped. He waved Virgil over closer to Roman. “Come on, Ro, we’ll boost you up.”

Roman spluttered in protest, but Patton knelt at the base of the tree, hands linked together. “Come on, Virge,” Patton said.

Roman sighed, but he hesitantly stepped on Patton’s hand. He grabbed Virgil’s shoulder for balance. Virgil did nothing to help, just stood there and let Roman struggle to get into the tree. Patton lifted Roman higher. Roman flailed and nearly fell, but Virgil placed a hand on his back to keep him upright.

Roman grabbed the bottom branch of the tree. Patton helped push him up so he could get a better grip. Roman managed to get on top of the branch.

He looked down. “How high do I have to go?”

“Bet you can’t get higher than me!”

Virgil glanced over at one of the other trees where Remus’s voice had come from. Remus was already high up in his tree, with Logan and Janus at the base, staring up at him in confusion.

Roman glared at Remus. “I bet I can!”

He skittered up the tree faster than Virgil had expected. In no time, he was at the same level as Remus.

Virgil blinked up at Roman. “We can’t get him down without someone falling to their death, can we?”

“Aww, don’t think negatively, kiddo!” Patton said. “I’m sure we can do this. We just have to work together as a team.”

“Alright campers!” Unus’ voice shouted. “Now, here’s the main lesson we want you to learn with this activity. If you’re stuck in a tree alone, and two people happen to come across you, they are buddies. Don’t just assume just because another human life is nearby that they are obligated to help you, because they’re not.”

“However,” Annus said, “one of our main rules at camp is that you need to help those in need. It’s in our nature to help. So you and your new temporary buddies will be helping your third buddy get out of the tree safely.”

“Another thing to note is that you don’t know how long that person’s been up there,” Unus added. “They could have days to survive, they could have minutes. So you do want to work as quickly as you can.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow at Roman. “How the fuck do we get him down from there? He’s... he’s really far up there. That’s really up there.”

Patton scratched the back of his neck. “Maybe we need to get up there.”

Virgil didn’t think that was the best idea, but he didn’t see any other options. “I can give you a boost.”

“Great idea, buddy.”

Virgil knelt on the ground like Patton had, linking his fingers together. Patton gently stepped on his hands and Virgil vaulted him up.

“Whoa!” Patton ended up with his arms wrapped around the lowest branch, already halfway in the tree. “You’re a lot stronger than I thought you were, Virge!”

Virgil stood. He backed up and made a running start. He launched up high enough that he managed to grab the branch. He pulled himself up with Patton.

Patton swung his legs up to hook them on another branch. “Oh. Okay, this was a mistake. Oh no, I can’t—hang on.” He wriggled and tried to scoot closer to the other branch, where his legs were. “What if I get stuck in the tree?”

“Well, that’s okay, because you’ve got a buddy.” Virgil stood on the branch he was currently on. He wasn’t worried about falling. “You’re okay as long as you’ve got a buddy.”

“How do I do this?” Patton whispered.

“You climb.”

“How?” Patton tried to pull his torso upright, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength for it. Half his body was still hanging nearly upside down.

“Why are you upside down?” Virgil asked.

“I don’t know.”

Virgil leaned down and reached out a hand. “Here.”

Patton let go of the branch and grabbed Virgil’s hand. Virgil pulled him so he was sitting upright, and Patton squirmed until he was sitting on the higher branch he’d been trying to get onto.

“Wow, thanks buddy.” He looked down. “Oh there’s a butterfly. It’s beautiful. Nature’s beautiful.”

“Nature isn’t the point of this activity, Pat.” Virgil looked up at Roman. “You okay up there, Princess?”

“Just fucking peachy! Screw off, Remus, I got higher than you! Stop making faces at me!”

Virgil looked down at the ground below Remus’ tree. Logan was already on one of the branches and slowly making his way up. Janus was leaning against the tree trunk, filing his nails. The beads on his bracelets clacked every time he moved.

He turned back to Patton, who was currently struggling to climb to the next branch. “Come on, Virge, we can’t give up. Roman needs us.”

Virgil looked back and forth between Roman and Patton. “You know, I could just finish this activity right now. It wouldn’t be hard for me to get up there. You can go back down if you want.”

“No, we have to use teamwork,” Patton protested. “We’re buddies. We have to work together.”

Virgil shrugged. “Alright then. Need help getting up?”

Patton deflated. “Yes please.”

Virgil stepped from his branch to the one Patton was on in one swift move. He picked Patton up under his arms and lifted him up so he could reach the next branch, earning a surprised yelp from Patton.

“How can you pick me up?” he squeaked.

“I don’t know. Just grab the branch.”

Patton grabbed the next branch, and Virgil helped push him up so he was sitting on it. Virgil hopped up to another branch and clambered up the tree to sit next to Patton.

“Little reminder, campers!” Unus’s voice shouted. “Another thing about being out in nature, and especially in a scenario such as this where it’s dangerous—because it is getting dangerous, we are up pretty high right now—is that communication is key.” He looked up at where the cat toy they’d thrown into the tree was sitting, stuck on a branch. “So where do I go to first?”

“I’m trying to remember all the guidebook phrases that I needed to know,” Annus said. “Uh, right foot in the crack, push up on right foot, wrap left leg round, test branch for stability?”

Virgil turned away from their counselors, only to see that Patton was having some issues. He was currently trying to get onto the next branch, but the back of his shirt was caught on a stick, his glasses were hanging half off his face, and one foot was hooked on one branch while he was hugging another branch like a sloth.

“Help?” he squeaked.

Virgil sighed. “Look, I’ll just go get Roman. You stay here. Don’t fall.”

“That sounds good to me, buddy. I’ll be right with you.”

Virgil clambered up the next few branches until he was almost at Roman’s level. Roman was leaning out of the tree towards Remus, who was sticking his tongue out at Roman and making rude gestures towards him.

“Oh, that’s real mature, Ree!” Roman shouted. “Go fuck yourself!”

“I’d rather fuck—”

“Don’t finish that sentence!” Logan shouted from lower in the tree.

“Virge!” Patton called. “Are the branches more stable up there?”

Virgil gently hopped on the branch he was standing on. “Yeah, they’re pretty stable.”

“How close are you to Roman?”

“Minutes.”

Patton didn’t respond right away. “What?”

“I’m minutes away from him.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m almost there but I’m not quite.”

“Can you break off a branch and reach him?”

“I don’t want to break the tree,” Virgil said.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right, we’re not supposed to break branches,” Patton agreed. “Wait, I see another crevice around the branch that your left arm is wrapped around. If you bring your left leg up to that crack, it should give you enough boost to reach him.”

Virgil peered around the branch he held with his left arm and saw what Patton meant. He shifted his left leg and brought it up to step on the tree where two branches connected. “Here?”

“Yeah, there! Can you reach him?”

Virgil reached up. His fingertips barely grazed Roman’s shirt. Roman didn’t seem to notice or care. He was still arguing with his brother.

“Can you grab him?” Patton called.

“Almost, I’m so close. I just can’t reach him.” Virgil strained to grab Roman’s shirt. “Y’know, I could totally die up here. I could literally just fall and die. Kinda puts things into perspective. Do you ever think about that when you’re in moments like these? Everything could be taken from you in a split second. Death is around the corner for all of us. We take so much for granted.”

Both the groups in both trees fell silent. Virgil stretched farther to try and reach Roman.

“I can’t reach him!” Logan whined. He was in the same position as Virgil, straining to reach the idiot that was in the tree with him.

“Just yank him down,” Janus said. “He’ll be fine.”

“I would, but I can’t reach!”

Janus kept filing his nails. “Imagine that he’s your father, and he left you when you were a young kid. You need to confront him to face your past.”

Logan paused. “But I like my dad, and Remus isn’t my dad. I had a pretty good childhood so far.”

“Okay,” Janus said. “Then he’s your son. Your metaphorical son. You didn’t want him and now you want to throw him out of the tree.”

“I don’t want kids. I would never have a son. Also, Remus is older than me by two years. He can’t be my son.”

Janus sighed. “Remus stole your favourite graphing calculator. Get it back.”

Logan stared up at Remus. He lunged upward and grabbed the back of Remus’s shirt. Remus cackled lie a madman as Logan yanked him off the branch. Remus tumbled down the tree and fell on the ground with a sickening _crack_. Logan lost his balance and toppled forward, screaming as he fell from one branch to another. He landed right on top of Remus.

Logan groaned and rolled onto the grass. Remus sat bolt upright, a wicked grin on his face. “I think I broke something!”

Virgil sighed. He climbed up next to Roman and pushed him off. Roman shrieked and plummeted off the branch he was perched on. Luckily, he was on a branch a little lower than Remus, so it didn’t sound like anything broke when he landed.

Virgil hopped down the branches and landed on the grass. “So, activity over?”

Roman huffed and sat up next to his brother. “Fuck you, Hot Topic.”

“Fuck you too, Princey.” Virgil looked up at Janus. “Should we go back to our tent?”

“Hang on.” Janus lowered his nail file and sauntered up to the tree Roman and Virgil had been in. He hit the trunk with his elbow. As if on cue, Patton came falling out of the branches, screaming all the way. He hit the ground with an _oof_ and lied there, groaning in pain.

Janus started filing his nails again. “Now we can go back to the tent.”

“Nice.”


	5. How To Safely Bury Your Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why does ao3 like to screw me over with this fic, it doesn't show up in the recently updated works until i delete the chapter and then post it again what the hELL dude

Janus slid a bracelet bead onto a piece of string. “So, with kandi bracelets, there’s kind of a whole etiquette for trading it once you make it. You have to interlock your fingers with the other person’s and slide the bracelet from your arm to the other person’s arm. You usually keep your tradeable kandi on your right arm.”

“That’s cool but...” All the beads on Virgil’s string slid off and he sighed. “Let’s save the etiquette lessons for when I actually manage to finish a bracelet.”

“Come on out, campers!”

Virgil and Janus both sighed. “What is it now?” Janus groaned. He and Virgil set their unfinished bracelets aside and stepped out of the tent.

“Good afternoon, campers!” Unus called. He stood by the firepit with Annus and Amy. Each of them had a shovel in their hands.

Annus furrowed his brow and glanced at Unus. “You okay? You sounded pained when you said that.”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“You didn’t sound excited at all.”

“No, I’m excited.”

Annus shrugged and turned to look at the campers with a smile. “Good afternoon, campers. This is your second... no, third day... night?” He shook his head. “You survived this long. Some of you. But the reality is some of you may not survive in the woods. Nature’s a very dangerous place, filled with evil, horrible monstrosities... that are beautiful in their own way.”

“Exactly,” Unus agreed. “So, today, we are going to show you how to prepare a burial in a quick and efficient way for any of your fallen friends who might not have survived the night.”

“I fell!” Remus piped up. “I think I broke my spine!”

“Remember,” Annus continued, ignoring Remus, “carcasses can attract bears and other wildlife that are opportunistic scavengers just like humans.”

“You might have a hoard of squirrels on your campsite before you know it,” Unus said. “So make sure to take care of that body quick and efficiently. As fast as you can.”

Annus gestured to Unus. “Now what you’re going to need is a shovel and a buddy.”

“That’s right,” Unus said. “Don’t forget the buddy system.” The smile melted off his face. “Or you will die.”

Annus’ voice was low and serious when he spoke next. “Never, ever forget the buddy system. This is how this happened in the first place. Did you really think your negligence allowed Gerald to go out into the woods at night to go pee? No. You allowed him to go _die_.”

Unus spread his hands. “When he said ‘hey, I’m gonna go pee”, what he really meant is ‘buddy, come pee with me’, but you just let him go off by his lonesome..” Unus jabbed his shovel into the ground. “And that is why he is deceased now. His buddy is left buddy-less.”

No one spoke. Virgil was extremely confused. Who was Gerald, and was he actually dead? If a camper died here, these guys were going to have a lawsuit on their hands, probably.

Unus smiled. “So let’s get digging!”

Amy set down her shovel and picked up a duffel bag off the ground. “Amy is going to provide each pair of buddies with a mannequin body part to dig a grave for and a couple shovels,” Annus said. “Remember, the first thing you’re going to need to do is scout the area for a proper place for burial. You want a place with some soft dirt, plenty of open space, not too close to your campsite just in case some of those animals can dig.”

“And they can,” Unus added as Amy started handing mannequin arms and legs to pairs of campers. “They are good with their claws. So, again, you’re going to want to dig, like everyone knows, six feet down at the least.”

“Just straight down,” Annus agreed, “so you can put them in feet first, head at the top. There’s basically no nutrients in the head. If your friend died, they’re probably dumb anyway so that head’s pretty empty.”

Amy took a mannequin head out of her bag and held it out to Virgil. Virgil gave it a nervous glance before taking it in his hands. Amy handed two shovels to Janus before moving on.

“The reason you’re all getting pieces of a mannequin instead of a full body,” Annus continued, “is because it’s best to scatter the pieces of the body so the wild animals don’t focus on one particular spot, and you can set up traps over the graves to keep them from entering your campsite.”

Unus hefted his own shovel. “But if you’re burying Gerald’s body like we are, in one big chunk, he will grow into the environment. The hair will grow from out the ground, so you don’t want the hair at the bottom of the hole. At the top is where it should be so it can sprout nicely.”

“Falsehood!” Logan shouted. “Your hair doesn’t continue growth after you die, and standing a body vertically is not the most common way to bury a body!”

“Everyone find a place to dig!” Annus said, ignoring Logan.

The campers dispersed. Virgil followed Janus to the trees, carrying the mannequin head with him. Janus stopped near a tree. He nudged the dirt with a shovel. “This looks like a decent place.” He held out one of the shovels to Virgil. “Here.”

Virgil took it in one hand. “Why do you get the big shovel?”

“Because I can wield it better. Put the head down, I feel like it’s staring at me.”

Virgil set the head on the ground at the base of the tree. Janus drove his shovel into the ground and pried up a scoop of dirt.

“Another thing to keep in mind,” Annus shouted from where he and Unus were digging, “is that you will not always be provided with a shovel when you’re out in the wilderness. You need to bring a quality shovel that can really break the earth. You want a sharpened blade and you want a good foot rest so that you can really stomp into the dirt, leverage it out, and scoop it away.”

Amy’s voice spoke next. “Mark, where’s your tactical shovel?”

Annus paused before he could dig out another scoop. He lowered his shovel and stared at the ground, looking devastated. Unus shook his head at Amy.

“Amy, why did you say that?” He turned back to Annus and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man, it’s okay. You’re doing really good with this shovel. You’re doing really, really good.”

“What did I say?” Amy asked.

Unus patted Annus’s shoulder. “Amy, why did you bring up the tactical shovel?”

“Just asking a question.”

Unus gestured to the ground Annus had started to dig into. “Dude, look at this hole you’re digging. You’re doing such a good job! It’s so much better than mine. Look at it!” He glared at Amy. “Don’t ever bring up the tactical shovel again. Don’t bring up the tactical shovel. Okay? That wasn’t cool.”

Amy shifted her grip on her own shovel. “Mark, I’m sorry.”

Annus sniffled. “It’s okay, it’s fine.” The three of them kept digging.

Virgil shook his head and turned away from their counselors. He didn’t care to know what they were talking about.

“This is a stupid activity,” Janus mumbled as he scooped up some more dirt.

“Are they trying to teach us how to get away with murder?” Virgil asked.

“Feels like it.” Janus furrowed his brow. “On second thought, I may have use for this activity after all.”

“Why?”

Janus didn’t answer and just kept digging. Virgil shrugged off his own suspicion and joined him.

“Don’t forget,” Unus’s voice called, “when you’re digging a grave, you should probably bring water, because it’s hot outside and you need to hydrate. You can only absorb so much sweat that you produce. And at a point, it gets unhealthy and your body can’t filter it out. You’re just filtering in and out the bad water that your body produces.”

“Sweat is basically piss,” Annus said. “You piss out your skin when you can’t piss out your dick. So if you drink that and piss it out again, it becomes super piss, and that’s not good to drink. But if you drink that, then it turns into ultra piss, which is very bad to drink.”

Unus set his shovel aside. “It’s also incredibly dangerous, because bees can see vapours from the ultra piss. So, once you start to produce the ultra piss, it will attract hundreds, possibly thousands of bees. Especially in these summer times where it’s dryer, because bees are looking for water, so be extra careful with the ultra piss.” He looked around at the campers. “Are you writing all this down? You should probably be taking notes. We have our own handbooks, but we’re not just gonna hand those out to anybody who wants them. You better be keeping notes and making your own handbook as you go along. We will be checking your work at the end.”

“There will be a test,” Annus said. “And there better be something about ultra piss on there.”

Virgil blinked and exchanged a confused glance with Janus. Why was piss important to living out in the wilderness? He was also pretty sure that most of what they just said was absolute bullshit. Sweat was not the same thing as piss. And what did all of this have to do with burying the body of your dead fellow camper?

“Oh my god, how stupid are you people?” Logan yelled. “Sweat is not piss, and ultra piss isn’t a thing! Remus, I swear to god, if you try to eat the mannequin arm one more fucking time, I’m going to lose it!”

“I wanna drink the ultra piss!” Remus shrieked. “Logan, help me collect my sweat!”

“I am not going to help you drink your own sweat!”

Janus and Virgil kept digging, listening to the chaos around them. “So,” Virgil said, choosing to ignore Logan and Remus’s antics, “why are you at this camp?”

“My parents want me to make friends outside of my own friend group,” Janus answered. “They think my friends are a little weird. They don’t like the way I dress or act, so they sent me to a summer in hopes I’d meet with some ‘normal’ people.” He snorted. “That hasn’t happened, obviously. And I don’t mean that as an insult towards you. Normal is overrated, anyway.”

“Fair enough.” Virgil scooped out some dirt and tossed it aside. “My parents sent me here so I can interact with people more. They think I’m just bad at talking to people. And I am, sort of, but part of it is just that I don’t want to talk to people. No one else I know is interested in the same things I am.”

Janus leaned on his shovel. “What sort of things are you interested in?”

Virgil hesitated. “Have you ever heard of My Chemical Romance?”

A grin blossomed across Janus’s face. “We are going to get along very well.” He looked down at the hole. “So, do we have to do this six feet down? I feel like we can’t dig that far.”

Virgil crouched down and peered at the hole. “It looks big enough for the head. I think we can shove it in there and be done.”

“Yeah.” Janus set down his shovel. He walked over to the mannequin head and kicked it towards the hole. Virgil watched Janus nudge the head across the ground. It rolled into the hole.

Virgil and Janus grabbed their shovels and started scooping dirt back over the head. It was buried under the ground within a minute.

“Well, we’re done,” Janus said. “What now?”

Virgil glanced around for something to do. He spotted one kid with a leather jacket and his buddy in a pink sweater vest trying to shove a mannequin leg into the hole they’d dug. Roman and Patton were nearby, quietly singing a song about digging a grave as they jabbed their shovels into the ground. Virgil could barely hear them over the sound of Remus cackling like a madman and Logan shouting at him to behave.

“Let’s go watch Logan and Remus,” Virgil suggested. “They sound like they’re having fun.”

“Remus, I will slaughter you!” Logan’s voice shouted. “Stop trying to bury yourself!”

Janus and Virgil carried their shovels over to where Logan and Remus were working. They seemed to have dug a decent hole already, but it was much wider than it needed to be for the mannequin arm they were supposed to be burying. Remus was lying in the hole while Logan stood there with his face in his hands.

Remus perked up as soon as he saw Janus. “I’m gonna be buried in the fetal position! Logan, put dirt on me!”

“I will not bury you,” Logan huffed. “We’re supposed to be burying the mannequin arm.”

“Maybe burying a full person will get you bonus points,” Janus suggested. “That is the activity after all. Burying a body.”

“We can help you bury him,” Virgil offered.

“I like the way you think, scene kids,” Remus said. “Come on, nerd. Bury me!”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “Bonus points? I don’t think we’ve got a points system here.”

“There is going to be a test, though,” Janus reminded him. “Maybe this is like, extra credit.”

Logan pushed his glasses up his nose, staring at the ground as if he was thinking. “Remus, are you certain you’d like to be buried?”

Remus’s eyes lit up. “Fuck yeah!”

Logan, Janus, and Virgil all started scooping up dirt and piling it onto Remus. Remus cackled maniacally and curled up in the hole.

“So, do you guys think there actually was a camper named Gerald that died?” Virgil asked. He’d been wondering that ever since their counselors mentioned it earlier.

“Maybe,” Logan said. “I didn’t hear of one, but since there was an odd number of campers here, it is possible that there was a camper without a buddy who wandered off into the woods in the middle of the night and died.”

“Oh, Gerald exists,” Janus said. “Or, he did.”

Vigil paused in the middle of scooping up some dirt. “How do you know?”

“I met him soon after we built our tents.” Janus shoveled some dirt onto Remus. “I didn’t like him. There’s a reason I singled him out as the one to die early on.”

Virgil blinked in confusion. “Singled him out?”

Janus paused. _“They_ singled him out. The counselors. They’re using him as an example. I didn’t do anything. They probably don’t like him either. I’m pretty sure they already wrote a letter to the parents. I read it. They’re planning on saying they just couldn’t find the body. The bears were going to eat him anyway. The parents won’t know where the body is going. I heard the counselors talking about it. They’re going to use the fat from Gerald’s body to fuel our oil lamps. It’s fine, it’s fine, I had nothing to do with it.” Janus tossed dirt onto Remus. “You didn’t hear any of this from me. If you tell anyone, I’ll bury you too.”

All four of them were silent as that sank in. Virgil didn’t know if he was extremely glad to have Janus as a buddy or if he really, really wanted to switch buddies with someone.

“So...” Logan started. “Janus, if you don’t mind me asking, what was Gerald like?”

“He was unexceptional in every way,” Janus answered. “Be glad he’s dead.” He looked down at Remus. “Is this good enough, or do we have to bury his head too?”

Virgil looked down at Remus. Only his head remained unburied.

“Yeah, I think this is good enough,” Logan said.

Patton pranced past their group, singing about burying a body with his shovel in his hands. Virgil glanced at Roman to see him glaring after Patton with a downright murderous look on his face. That was more than a little concerning. Virgil didn’t know what was going on with those two, but he didn’t want any part of it.

Virgil set down his shovel. “Jan, let’s go back to the tent. I think I’ve had enough of burying bodies for one day.”

“Fair enough.”


	6. Team Building For 2: Trust Fall, Tug-Of-War, And More!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 8 is gonna be weirdly emotional ngl but we've still got a bit more crack to get through before we get there

Virgil bolted upright to the sound of a horrible crashing. He scrambled out of his sleeping bag, half thinking that they were getting attacked by a bear. He rushed out of the tent. Janus was right behind him.

Every other camper seemed to have thought the same thing, because they were all running outside to see what the noise was. Virgil glanced around furiously and saw Annus and Unus banging pots and pans together while yelling.

They lowered their kitchenware when they saw that the campers were up. “Good morning, campers,” Unus said with a smile.

“Still have your buddy?” Annus asked. “Good. Because today we’re doing things in teams. One step above buddies is teams. Team building is the most important part of being in a camp, because you may have your buddy, but we’re all a team.”

“So today,” Unus continued, “we will be doing some crucial team building exercises. This is not only a lesson in team building, but also, in trust. The very foundation of teams.”

Annus raised a megaphone to his mouth. “TRUST FALL!” he shouted. “Everyone put on your camp uniforms and do a trust fall with your buddy to get things started.”

Lots of campers groaned in protest at this, Virgil and Janus included. It was bad enough that their crazy ass counselors woke them up with this. What was worse was that they were being forced to do something as stupid as a trust fall.

Virgil and Janus both reached back into their tent and grabbed their respective camp shirts. When they got their uniforms on, Virgil saw that a few other pairs of campers were already doing their trust falls. He spotted one kid in a white shirt and leather jacket catching another kid in a black shirt and a pink sweater vest. He caught sight of Patton standing with his back to Roman, ready to fall and be caught, but Roman yawned when he supposed to catch Patton and he went falling to the ground. Remus ran and leaped at Logan. Logan shrieked and skittered out of the way. Remus crashed into their tent.

“This is stupid,” Janus said. He sighed. “Oh well.” He turned his back to Virgil.

Virgil rushed forward to catch Janus before he could fall. He only barely caught him.

“Warn a dude next time,” Virgil grumbled as he pushed Janus upright.

Janus turned back around. “Your turn.”

Virgil was hesitant to willingly let someone else catch him, but he turned his back to Janus. Every muscle in his body tensed, but he let himself fall backwards.

Janus’s hand was on his back the moment he started to tilt. “There. Activity done. Can we go back in the tent now?”

“Nice job, campers!” Annus called out. “You should be able to trust your buddy anywhere, anytime. That’s rule number...” His voice trailed off. “What rule number are we on?”

“Six?” Unus offered.

“No, we did six. Did we do six?”

“I don’t know how many rules we have.”

“This is another rule!” Annus decided. “Trust. At any moment, your buddy can need you. You never know when a bear is going to strike. You never know when a chipmunk is going to go rabid. You gotta be prepared for anything.”

Unus nodded. “That’s right. You need to prepare to catch your buddy if they fall.” He hopped up onto a rock sticking out of the ground. “When you’re in nature, you’re going to be climbing on a lot of things.”

“They may be slippery surfaces,” Annus said. “You may be unsure of your footing, so you have to be prepared at any time to catch your buddy.”

Unus let himself fall backwards into Annus’s arms. “If you’re climbing a tree with your buddy, be prepared to catch them if they fall!” He looked up at Annus. “What are we doing from here? Is that the whole activity?”

“No, no, we’ve got a lot of team activities. Like...” Annus looked to Amy. “What else do we got?”

“Human pyramid,” Amy said, leaning against a tree as she fiddled with a video camera.

Unus wriggled out of Annus’s arms. “Right! Everyone, group up with two other pairs of buddies so you’ve got a group of six. We’re forming human pyramids!”

Annus nodded. “No other way to show your strength as a team than with a human pyramid. The ultimate shape.”

The campers shuffled around to other pairs. Virgil spotted Logan pulling Remus behind him towards Virgil and Janus.

“Please pair up with us,” Logan said as soon as they reached Virgil. “I need some form of order with this dumbass.”

“Sounds good to me,” Janus said. “Who else are we grouping up with?”

“HI kiddos!” Patton’s voice shouted. Virgil craned his neck and spotted him skipping towards them, dragging Roman behind him.

“I don’t want to be in a group with my brother,” Roman whined as Patton pulled him along.

Patton stopped in front of the group. “Can we be with you guys?”

“I don’t care,” Virgil said. “Do what you want.”

“Yay!” Patton cheered at the same time Roman groaned “No!”

“So who’s gonna be the bottom?” Remus said, a grin on his face.

Virgil grimaced. “I don’t like the way you said that.”

Logan scratched the back of his neck. “Well, objectively speaking, since Roman and Remus are the oldest and tallest, I believe they would be most suited for being the base of our pyramid. Janus is the smallest out of all of us, so I believe he should be the point. Patton, Virgil, let’s compare our heights to see which of us is bigger and more suited to being on the bottom with the twins.”

“I don’t want to be on the same level as Remus,” Roman protested. “I’m above him in every way!”

“Falsehood,” Logan said. “The two of you are the same height, therefore you are already on the same level. Patton, it appears you’re slightly taller than Virgil, and your bigger build will make you a more sturdy base.”

Roman blinked. “Are you indirectly calling Patton fat?”

“No,” Logan said. “I am saying that he weighs more than me and is taller than Virgil, so he would be a more sturdy base. Also, I know you’re insinuating that me calling him big means I’m indirectly calling him ugly, but I would argue that his chubbiness makes him objectively adorable. Get over your superficial view of appearances and get on the ground so the rest of us can stand on you.”

Patton gasped. “You think I’m adorable?” he squealed.

He wrapped Logan in a hug. Logan yelped as Patton lifted him off the ground. “It appears Patton is also stronger than I am,” Logan choked as Patton squeezed him. “He should be in the middle of the base.”

Patton set Logan down and smiled at Virgil. “Virge is also strong. Maybe he should help me be the foundation of our friendship pyramid.”

Virgil tensed as everyone else turned their gazes to him. Logan hummed in thought. “I did see him singlehandedly climb that tree two days ago and pull Patton up with him. Remus, you and I can form the middle of the pyramid.”

“Nice!” Remus shoved his brother. “Get on the ground, peasant! I get to step on you!”

Roman gasped in offence. “Why can’t I be in the middle?”

“Because you’re a whiny little bitch boy,” Janus said. “Get on the ground so we can get this stupid activity over with.”

Roman grumbled, but he lowered himself to his hands and knees in the dirt. Patton positioned himself next to Roman, and Virgil went next to Patton. Virgil felt a weight on his back as Logan and Remus clambered on top of them.

Janus sighed. “I don’t think I can get up there.”

“Just try, kiddo,” Patton said. “You can do anything you put your mind to!”

Janus rolled his eyes, but he climbed up and managed to position himself on top of the pyramid.

“Great, we did it,” Roman said. “Now can you guys get off me?”

Janus, Remus, and Logan all stepped down from their spots, allowing Roman, Patton, and Virgil to stand. “What are we doing next?” Patton asked.

A blow of a whistle screamed in Virgil’s eardrums. “Tug of war!” Annus’s voice shouted. “Are you still in your groups? Good. Because you guys are going to compete three on three, Unuses VS. Annuses!”

Amy started through the crowd, handing out long ropes to each group of campers. She handed one to Remus and he grinned. “You know what else we could use this for?” He waggled his eyebrows as he spoke.

“Nothing but tug of war,” Logan answered. “I don’t want to hear one more stupid kinky thing come out of that mouth of yours.”

“Shut me up yourself, nerd!”

Janus heaved a sigh. “Oh my god, everyone just split up and grab the damn rope already.”

They split up and grabbed opposite ends of the rope, making sure that they were a safe distance away from the other groups. “Tug of war is a classic team building activity,” Annus said. “It dates back all the way back to the earliest man. You get a rope... or, like, a carcass or something, and you pull, but instead of one team where we’re all unified, it’s two teams, and the other team is the enemy and needs to die.”

“And it’s hot out, so make sure you wear sunscreen and drink plenty of water,” Unus added.

“Where’s our water?” Annus asked.

“We didn’t bring any water.”

“What? Why didn’t we bring water?”

“I don’t know. We were thinking more about activities than water.”

“We can’t even get any,” Annus said. “The creek’s dry. Whatever, let’s just get this over with.”

“Okay. Three, two one—”

A blast of a whistle hit Virgil’s ears. He, Patton, and Remus started pulling on their end of the rope. Roman yelped as a sharp yank pulled him forward and almost made him fall. Logan just about crashed right into him. Janus was standing off to the side, examining his nails and not participating in the activity.

Remus cackled. “Gotcha, bitches!”

Virgil blinked. He and Patton were hardly pulling.

He shrugged and gave another tug. Logan let go and allowed Roman to get dragged across the ground, still on his feet. Remus let go and ran around to stand next to Janus so he could watch his brother get dragged.

“Hang on, I don’t think the winner is clear yet,” Roman said, his voice strained from effort.

Patton stepped away from the rope. “Here, I’ll back out. Make it a little more fair for you guys.”

Virgil gave another light tug and Roman stumbled. “I’m pretty sure the winner is clear.”

“No, keep going,” Roman insisted. “I’ve still got some fight left in me. I’ve still got fight.”

“Okay.” Virgil started walking backwards, pulling Roman along. “You done yet, or...?”

“No, no, no, I’ve still got fight in me.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Virgil’s back hit a tree and he just started pulling the rope towards him. “How about now?”

“No, I’m good. I can do it.”

Virgil let go of the rope and Roman toppled backwards. “You done now?”

Roman sighed from where he had landed on the ground. “Yeah.”

Someone blew a whistle. “Three legged race!” Unus yelled. “Get back in your pairs for this one and tie one of your legs to your buddy’s.”

Janus groaned. “How many of these are we going to do?”

Turns out, there were still a lot more activities they were going to do.

The three legged race went about as well as anyone would have expected. Janus and Virgil actually did pretty well, as they were both decently coordinated. Patton and Roman couldn’t coordinate themselves worth shit, so the amount of time that they fell was hysterical. Virgil almost wished he’d been allowed to bring his phone so he could take pictures. Logan tried to keep Remus in time, but Remus just wanted to run, so he ended up dragging Logan behind him by one leg while Logan just glared at the sky with a disappointed look.

The activity ended with a sharp blow of the whistle, and they moved onto something even more stupid: three legged tug of war.

Janus and Virgil each held one end of their rope, Virgil’s left leg tied to Janus’s right. “Literally how are we supposed to do this?” Janus mumbled.

Virgil gestured to the kid in the pink sweater vest and his buddy in the leather jacket. “Like that, I guess?”

The two of them were stuck together by their legs, but they were still pulling on the rope in their hands, trying to see who would win (if either of them even could).

Janus groaned. “I hate this fucking camp.”

Needless to say, that activity didn’t go well, but the next was just as awful.

“Tug of war sack races!” Annus announced as Amy handed out burlap sacks to each kid.

Virgil and Janus ended up on opposite ends of their rope, both of them standing in a sack. “We didn’t even do normal sack races,” Virgil muttered.

“That’s not the problem here,” Janus grumbled.

Virgil glanced over at the other campers. Remus had his sack on over his head and was pulling at the rope, dragging Logan across the ground. Logan had fallen over in his sack and was letting Remus continue to drag him. Roman was still furiously trying to pull the rope over to him, but he was no match for Patton, who hardly even seemed to be pulling. Patton started letting some of the rope go to pretend that Roman was winning.

That activity led into “egg balance tug of war”. Every camper ended up with spoons and one egg, and they had to pull their rope as they passed the egg back and forth.

Janus held out his empty spoon, holding the rope in his other hand. “Come to me.”

“Well, I don’t want to lose the tug of war,” Virgil protested.

“Then we’re going to lose the egg,” Janus said. “It’s a team building thing.”

“Okay, but you come to me. How about you do that, and I pass you the egg?”

“No, you come to me.”

“But what if you come to me?”

“What if you come to me?”

Virgil waggled the egg on his spoon. “Just bring it closer. We’re almost there.”

They inched towards each other and Virgil deposited the egg onto Janus’s spoon. He backed away immediately so Janus couldn’t pull the rope and make him lose the tug of war.

“Okay now you come to me,” Janus said.

“No, you come to me with the egg,” Virgil said. He gently tugged on the rope.

Janus wobbled on his feet and tried to keep his spoon steady. “Careful!”

The egg fell. Virgil looked down at the remains. “You think we can get a new egg?”

The actual sack race was chaos with everyone else thrown into the mix competing against each other. Janus sat out the activity, of course. Patton smiled the whole time and stopped to help up other campers who had fallen. Roman and Remus were at each other’s throats, but Remus broke through the bottom of his sack and ended up running to the finish line. Logan wouldn’t stop falling over, which resulted in Patton staying right by his side to help him back up every time. And if anyone asks, no, Virgil was not walking right beside Roman just to trip him every time he started gaining on Remus.

Janus was forced to participate in the three legged egg balance, although he wouldn’t stop complaining over it. He and Virgil managed to keep their coordination from earlier as they passed their egg back and forth on their spoons. Patton and Roman lost their egg within the first few seconds, and Patton pouted at the loss of their egg child. As soon as Remus was handed an egg, he shoved it in his mouth, much to Logan’s disgust. Oddly enough, they stayed in time with each other during the race, and at the finish line, Remus spat out the egg, which had miraculously not broken in his mouth.

Virgil stared at Remus, who was cradling his spit-covered egg like it was a child. “That’s disgusting.”

Janus sighed. “Yeah.” He glanced down at his arms. “You wanna go make some more bracelets?”

“Sure.”


	7. How To Start A Fire (Except Don't...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all remember when they released this video and everyone was screaming about how there was LORE to the channel now?? and then Mark and Ethan hardly ever acknowledged it ever again?? and then "The Truth Of Unus Annus" came out and we all collectively lost our shit??? those were good times
> 
> anyway i'm doing the same thing, there could be lore to this fic but NOPE we're gonna ignore it as soon as this chapter is done :)

“Fire is no joke!”

Virgil stood in the midst of campers and listened as Annus ranted on about fire. Apparently, they were supposed to be learning how to make a fire. They had gone into the nearby cabin on the campgrounds, for some odd reason. Virgil did not have a good feeling about this afternoon’s activity.

“Don’t play around,” Annus continued. “It’s very dry in the summer. Fire risk is a real thing.”

“Don’t play with fire, especially out here in California, where places are real, real dry,” Unus added. “Even something as small as a lit cigarette butt could set this whole forest ablaze.”

“Falsehood,” Logan called. “We are not in California, we’re in Florida. Also, we’re indoors. There is no forest in this building, and it is also objectively the worst place to be making fires. Everything here is a fire hazard.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got a fireplace!” Annus smacked the bricks that surrounded the fireplace in question. “We found one.”

“We found one, finally,” Unus said. “After years of searching.”

“We’ve been out here for less than a week,” Logan pointed out.

Annus leaned against the fireplace. “Here at Camp Unus Annus, one of the most important skills for survival is knowing how to build a fire, so that you can cook your food, disinfect your water, clean your clothes, stay warm, and call grandma!”

“Exactly,” Unus agreed. “When was the last time you gave her a call, huh? Just say hey, what’s up, this is what’s new with my life. Your grandparents probably live vicariously through you.”

Annus nodded. “Yeah. And if they’re dead, stare deeply into the fire to see their face swim out of the flames.”

“Anyway!” Unus interrupted. “We’re going to make a fire with our bare hands. It’s easy to do. Even you could do it,” he said, gesturing to the campers. “And that’s saying something. Idiots.”

Annus lowered his voice. “We probably shouldn’t insult the people who are paying to be here,” he whispered. “They need our help. They’re just misguided, they’re not stupid. They’re ignorant. We’re helping.”

Unus nodded. “Right. Ignorance is not stupidity.”

“Right.” Annus turned to the campers with a smile. “Hey,” he said, as if he was talking to a toddler. “Just follow along and try and learn something. We’re going to make a ‘fire’. F—I—R—”

“T,” Unus finished. “Fire.”

Annus shook his head. “That’s... that’s not how you spell fire. You spelled ‘firt’. Not fire.”

“Now pay attention very closely,” Unus said. “Because we are professionals. We’re going to teach you how to make a fire.”

Amy grabbed an armful of sticks off the ground and started passing bundles of them to campers. She held a bundle out to Janus, who took it in one hand.

“This doesn’t seem safe,” Virgil said.

“No shit,” Janus muttered. “Well, if we burn the cabin down, then that’s not our problem.”

He sat on the ground and Virgil sat with him. Every pair of buddies untied their bundles of sticks and scattered them on the floor.

Annus held a knife out to Unus. “You wanna whittle your stick?”

“Yeah, sure, I’ve done some whittling in my time.” Unus took the knife and started whittling one of his sticks. Annus backed away from the blade.

“We will be having a regiment on knife safety,” Annus announced. “And it’s not because I’m currently fearing for my life.” He clapped his hands together. “Now, how to build a fire! Number one: be aware of the current threat level for forest fires. That’s B.A. for ‘be aware’. Step number two: kindling. Get kindling. That’s K. Or, G.K. for ‘get kindling’. B.A.G.K. Be aware, get kindling... Find perfect stick. B.A.G.K.F.P.S. Bag-kff-pss.”

“Bag of piss,” Unus suggested.

“Bag of piss!” Annus agreed. “Remember, if you want to start your fire, get your bag of piss. Last step: friction.”

“Well, there are multiple ways to make a fire,” Unus pointed out. “One of the most common ways is with a lighter. But we’re already out in the woods so we don’t have one.” He held up a stick. “So we will use friction. The friction of the stick against the other sticks on the ground creates smoke signals, and the smoke signals will travel up to your kindling, and it’ll say ‘hey, catch on fire’, and it’ll probably go ‘okay’ and an ember will form. The embers are what leads to the fire. The embers are what start the fire from within, so if you get the embers, you get the fire. You get the flames, you get the fire extinguisher, you put the fire out—”

“We do have a fire extinguisher!” Annus announced. He pointed to the water bottle sitting next to Unus. “Water! If this goes wrong, we will put water on it.”

Logan sighed. “I can’t even unpack everything that was wrong with what you two just said.”

“Step one: you’ve got your perfect stick,” Annus said. “You put the perfect stick on your base of wood.”

Virgil picked through the sticks between him and Janus. “How do we know which one is a perfect stick?”

Janus shrugged. “I don’t know. How about this one?” He picked up a random stick from the pile.

“Sounds good to me.”

Janus poised the stick over the pile of twigs in front of them. He started quickly rubbing it between his hands the way Unus and Annus were doing, drilling the point into the pile of twigs.

Virgil peered down at the sticks. “This doesn’t seem like a good way to make fire.”

Virgil heard a scream behind him. He twisted around to see Roman flailing his arm around, as the sleeve of his shirt had caught on fire, with Patton frantically trying to pat out the flames. Remus skittered over from his spot and held a stick over Roman’s flaming sleeve. He crawled back over to Logan with his flaming stick, cackling like a madman.

“How the hell did they do that?” Janus whispered.

“I don’t know.” Virgil turned back to his and Janus’s pile of twigs. “We’re not going to get anywhere with this.”

Janus paused. “I think I literally just drilled a hole through a piece of bark. We don’t have fire, we have a hole.”

Virgil watched as someone poured water on Roman’s flaming arm. “Hey, Patton,” Virgil called. “How did you guys make a fire?”

“I don’t know, kiddo,” Patton said. “It just happened.” He picked up a piece of bark that he’d also managed to drill a hole through. “What if we could see where the fire was coming from? Is it, like, another dimension?”

“Maybe we have to summon Satan to make fire for us,” Janus said. “You think we can do that?”

“We can try,” Virgil said. “He’s good at making fire, probably. Should we just commit a bunch of sins? Will that summon him?”

“Maybe.” Janus looked down at the twigs. “Gluttony is a sin. I ate a whole bag of Sweet Tarts for breakfast this morning.”

“And half a block of cheese,” Virgil added. “I don’t know how you’re still alive.”

“Look, I just confessed my sin, you don’t need to add to it.”

“What other sins are there? Adultery?”

“Well, we’re not adults, so we’re not guilty of that.”

Virgil prodded the sticks. “Hey, Lucifer. Luci boy. Can you give us fire?”

Janus huffed. “I don’t think he’s listening.”

“Probably not. I’ve only done so much sin in my life. I don’t think I’m on good terms with Satan yet.”

“I should be.” Janus glanced at their counselors. “Maybe we haven’t sinned enough,” he said, his voice suddenly low and menacing.

Virgil furrowed his brow, a little confused as to where Janus was going with this. “Okay?”

Janus narrowed his eyes. “I’m just saying... we’re in the middle of the woods. No one would find the body.”

“Of who?” Virgil asked. “Look, I’m pretty sure you already killed Gerald. That should be enough to get you in Satan’s good graces. Who are you planning on killing?”

“Doesn’t really matter,” Janus said. “No one would ever know.”

Virgil picked up a stick. “Okay, this conversation is freaking me out. Let’s just keep trying the normal way.”

He glanced up, and he froze. A dark shape moved outside the window. Unus stood outside, only... it _couldn’t_ be Unus because he was still inside. He still sat at the fireplace with Annus, trying to make a fire. That, and the Unus lookalike was wearing a black suit instead of a camp uniform. The strange lookalike peered in through the window at Unus. His gaze swept the room. A chill went up Virgil’s spine when his eyes slid over Virgil. The Unus lookalike pushed off the window and walked away.

Darkness fell on the cabin, as if someone had blocked out the windows. Campers screamed, Virgil included. “What the fuck!” he squeaked. “Janus, where are you? Are you there? What’s going on?”

Orange light flared to life in front of him. Flames flickered across the pile of sticks. Janus was still sitting there, as if he hadn’t moved at all. The light from outside flooded in again.

“I made a fire,” Janus said. He held up a bag of marshmallows. “Want one?”

Virgil blinked, waiting for his heart to slow back to normal. “Uh... sure.” He reached in and grabbed a marshmallow.

Virgil popped the marshmallow into his mouth. “Hey, do you know what that blackout was about?” he asked though a mouthful of marshmallow. “I mean, it was like someone blocked out the sun. Do you know what happened? Also, I think a clone of Unus was just outside. Or maybe it was a demon version of him. You think he did anything?”

“Not a clue.” Janus shifted, and Virgil caught a glimpse of something shiny and metallic on the floor next to him. Was that the counselor’s knife? And why did it look so red?

Janus stabbed a marshmallow with a stick and held it over the tiny fire. It caught on fire immediately. “Huh. The flames are jumping to consume me already.” He blew out the flames on his marshmallow. He reached behind his back and brought out a package of graham crackers and a chocolate bar. “Want a smore?”

“Sure, why not.” Virgil took two crackers and a piece of chocolate. He grabbed another marshmallow and jabbed it on a stick as Janus made his own smore.

“So, does everyone have a fire?” Unus called.

Virgil looked up at the counselors. Was it just him, or was there a splotch of red on Unus’s shirt?

“We’ll start passing marshmallows and crackers around so everyone can have a smore,” Unus said. “At the end of the day, there’s nothing like sharing a lovely smore with one of your closest friends.” He grinned, and something about it unsettled Virgil. His smile was just a little too wide, his teeth a little too sharp, eyes a little too red.

“Hey, do you know what’s wrong with Unus?” Virgil asked. “He looks like he was murdered and replaced with a demon.”

“No idea.” Janus took a bite of his smore. Some melted marshmallow dribbled onto his lip, and it might have just been the light, but Virgil could have sworn it looked red.

Virgil pointed to his own lip. “You got something right here.”

Janus blinked. “It’s jam,” he said.

“I never asked what it was.”

“Good.” Janus wiped his mouth. “Let’s put out this fire before the flames consume us all and we get devoured by Satan.”

“Good idea.”


	8. Was 2020 A Bad Year For Unus Annus?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter. this is the one where i projected all of my feelings about the ending of Unus Annus, and writing the end of this reminded me of all the times i've gone to summer camp and had to leave, so i projected some of that in there, too. this is the only chapter that's not filled with absolute feral chaos.

“Last day of camp.”

Virgil sat at the empty creek bed with Janus, Patton, Roman, Remus, and Logan. The other campers were gathered nearby, all in their own groups. Unus, Annus, and Amy all stood at the creek bed, tossing rocks into it like they were skipping them on the surface of the nonexistent water.

“The days have gone by quick,” Unus said.

Annus whipped a rock into the dry creek bed. “Since it’s the last day of Camp Unus Annus, we figured we’d spend it skipping some rocks down by the raging river here.”

Logan sighed. “You would probably be having more fun if there was water here.”

Annus shrugged. “Well, when we were told about these campgrounds, we were told about a lovely flowing river. Turns out, things aren’t what you always expect them to be.”

“Exactly,” Unus agreed. “But as campers, we make do. And we do the best that we can with what we’re given.”

Annus picked up another rock. “Campers, you know this is the only year that Camp Unus Annus is going to exist, right? That was in the camp brochure and on the forms.”

“We know,” Virgil said.

“Thank God,” Roman muttered. Patton nudged him with his elbow.

“Why would you make a camp only for a few days of one summer?” another camper asked.

“Because it’s temporary, so it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we do something,” Annus said. “This camp is only going to exist in our memories from this point on. It has value because it ends.”

“Some people have asked us if we’re going to extend the time of Unus Annus because of the way the year has played out,” Unus said. “There are a lot of things Mark and I wanted to do that we won’t get to do in the lifespan of Unus Annus. But extending the time completely defeats the purpose of Unus Annus. We have to play with the hands we were dealt.”

“Unus Annus is really centred around death,” Annus explained as he skipped a rock on the dry ground. “Some people get that, but some people don’t. It’s not about celebrating death, it’s about understanding that death is universal. It’s the constant ending point of life. And it’s what helps give life meaning. To me, anyway.”

Unus looked down at his hands. “I need more rocks.”

Virgil sighed. “I hate that camp is only for a week. If it was any other year, it would been longer.”

“You want to stay here longer?” Roman asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, it hasn’t been the worst experience,” Janus admitted.

“Honestly,” Remus said, “I think it’s kind of fitting that this camp happened in 2020. The whole thing about it is that it has value because it ends. It’s just ending quicker than it otherwise would have. Maybe it would have been better in another year, but it’s doing what it can with what it’s got.”

Logan blinked. “That was... surprisingly profound for you, Remus.”

Remus shrugged. “Yeah, I snorted a packet of cheese powder earlier. I think it’s finally starting to hit me.”

Logan sighed. “And the profound moment is gone.”

“In a way, I’m kind of looking forward to when we go home,” Patton said. “The ending of it is special if the journey was special. If we weren’t emotionally invested in any of this, going home wouldn’t mean anything.” He smiled and nudged Roman. “I think you’re actually going to miss us.”

Roman scoffed. “No, I won’t. I... I wasn’t invested in this at all.”

“Princey,” Virgil said, “if you didn’t care at all, you wouldn’t have tried so hard to win that tug of war with me, or any of the other competitions. You climbed a tree like a damn squirrel just so we could do a dumb activity you pretended not to care about.” He smirked. “I think you are going to miss us.”

Remus grinned. “Aww, he’s blushing. Roman, are you gonna miss your fwiends?”

Roman pushed Remus. Remus tumbled into the empty creek bed, cackling like a maniac.

Logan rolled his eyes and stood. “I’ll go make sure he didn’t break anything.”

Logan slid into the creek bed. Virgil watched him go. Virgil had thought he was going to hate being here, but between Janus teaching him how to make bracelets, competing against Roman, teaming up with Patton, befriending Logan, and witnessing Remus’s antics, he actually had a good time at summer camp. Strange.

“I’m actually going to miss you guys,” Virgil said.

Logan hauled himself out of the creek bed, Remus at his side. “Believe it or not,” Logan said, “I’m going to miss this, too. It’s been a fun few days.” He sat next to Patton. “You know, I wasn’t going to come to camp at all at first. I could have gone my whole life never coming here and never meeting any of you.”

“That’s sad to think about,” Patton said. “You could have missed the chance to be part of this.”

“I could have.” Logan lied back in the grass. “Did you know that the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are going to collide in four billion years? When they merge, the solar system as we know it is going to be pulled apart and replaced by something new. The Andromeda Galaxy contains so many stars. Imagine what our sky will look like then.”

Remus looked up at the sky as if imagining all the bright stars in the sky. “It’ll look so cool.”

“But we won’t be around to see it. Life as we know it will be gone. Billions of years of life could be destroyed by then. Stars that have guided travellers for eons will be flung into new orbits. We are nothing to the universe. We are infinitesimal specks in the void of space. We gripe about our mortality, but we should just be grateful that we’re getting to live. The seven billion lives on earth are so small compared to everything else. Out of all the lives we could have been born into, we were born into the ones we have, and we should make the most of our existence before we inevitably die.”

Janus nodded and kicked his legs off the edge of the creek bed. “From dust we came.”

“To dust we will return,” Patton muttered. He sighed. “If I really want to make the most out of the time I have, I want to spend it doing something I love. But the only thing I really know that I love is helping people.”

“Then do that,” Virgil said.

“I don’t always know how, though. I think... I think if there’s a meaning to life at all, it’s to help make everyone else’s life as meaningful as possible. I want to help other people be happy with their lives. I want to bring more meaning to the lives of others, and that will bring meaning to my life as well.”

“But what if others aren’t happy focusing on the wellbeing of others?” Janus piped up. “Sure, I feel good when I help other people, but I don’t find a big meaningful sense of fulfillment when I do it. I think the meaning of my life is to be as happy as I can doing what I want as long as I’m not hurting others.”

Patton hummed. “Maybe there’s a balance. Maybe we’re all meant to enjoy our lives as much as possible while helping others enjoy theirs. Besides, helping others feel happy doesn’t have to be about doing good deeds. It can just be about being in someone’s life.” He grinned and nudged Janus with his elbow. “You’re helping me be happy with life just by being my friend.”

Janus smiled. “Well... then I suppose there’s a bit of merit in helping others be happy if that’s all it takes.”

They were all silent for a moment as the counselors continued tossing rocks into the creek bed. Virgil’s thoughts wandered through his head, considering everything the others had just said. He’d thought about death a lot before, but it was strange to think that he and everyone else here were just small specks in the void of the universe. There was no set meaning to life. They were meant to make their own meaning.

“I could have died before I got here.”

They all turned to look at Remus. He had lied down on his stomach in the grass and was picking at the blades.

“What are you talking about?” Roman asked.

Remus ran a hand through his hair and tilted his head so the others could clearly see a shiny green stud in his earlobe. “Remember when Mom took me to get my ear pierced a few days ago?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I could have died then.” Remus kicked his legs in the air and went back to picking at the grass. “We were driving to the piercing studio. Mom’s not a great driver, so she tried to cut across the street to park in front of the shop. We almost got T-boned. We parked and Mom said ‘we could’ve died’. I said I didn’t think we would have. Mom said ‘you could’ve. It would have hit your side.’ She didn’t sound bothered about it and I didn’t feel bothered about it. I got my ear pierced and we went home.” He furrowed his brow. “But now I’m thinking about what would have happened if we had gotten hit. I could have died and missed out on camp. Roman, you probably wouldn’t have come here, either.”

Roman nodded slowly. “Yeah, I would have stayed home. I wouldn’t want to come here if you died.”

“It wasn’t really a close call,” Remus continued. “The other driver was already swerving to avoid us and Mom was booking it across the intersection and the cars weren’t super close. But if Mom had just been a bit slower and the other driver had been a bit faster, I probably wouldn’t be here. It really puts things into perspective. Death is around the corner for all of us and it could take us at any time.” He reached up and touched his ear. “I’m glad I got this done. If I only have a limited amount of time left, I want to try as many things as I can at least once before my time comes. I’m terrified of needles, but I did this anyway. I’m probably going to get a tattoo when I’m older, too. Just to say I did.”

“We don’t have all the time in the world,” Janus mused. “Even a year feels like a lot, but that time is over before you know it.”

Roman fiddled with the edge of his shirt. “I don’t have all the time I need to create everything I want. When I was younger, I separated my entire life into sections. I planned to write a certain book series when I was twenty, I would write the sequel series when I was thirty, I would write something new at forty, write some spinoffs at fifty and sixty, retire when I was seventy and live off the money I made for the rest of it. I thought that would be my life and I was prepared to live it. But I’ve changed so many things. I don’t want to write the same things I used to. I don’t know if I have enough time to write everything that I want now.”

“Write as much as you can,” Patton said. “Create everything you can.”

“But what if I don’t leave a mark on the world when I’m gone? What if after everything I’ve done, no one remembers me?”

“Some will,” Janus said. “I will, at least. So will the rest of us. Just by existing, you touch other people’s lives and that will stay with the rest of us until we die. Even if you don’t get famous, you’ll still have people who know you and will remember you when you’re gone.”

Roman seemed to consider that for a second. “Huh. I guess so.”

Virgil watched Unus chuck a rock into the empty stream bed. “I think I have the same problem,” Virgil admitted. “Roman, I don’t feel like I can do everything I want to do, but it’s not just because I don’t have the time. It’s because I’m not willing to do what I want to do.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Virgil sighed. “I’ve always been a super anxious kid. I can’t make myself do everything that everyone else can do all the time. I get anxious over everything. That’s been holding me back. I want to do so much with my life, but I can’t even make myself talk to kids in my grade that I’ve known for years.”

Logan pushed his glasses up his nose. “Well... you talked to me. On the bus. I was the first person you talked to.”

Logan was right. Virgil had spoken to Logan on the bus. Not only that, but after Virgil was assigned Janus as a buddy, they launched into a conversation almost immediately.

“I guess,” Virgil muttered as that sank in. “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to accomplish with my anxiety pulling me back, but I’ll work on it. I don’t want it to keep me from doing fun things like going to camp. If I listened to my anxiety and insisted that I not go, I never would have met any of you. Maybe I can get better at that.”

Roman slung an arm around Virgil’s shoulders. “Don’t fret, My Chemically Imbalanced Romance. We’ll all help you.”

Annus threw his last rock into the empty streambed. “Well, I guess we should get doing our last activity before the camp bus gets here,” he called.

“Yeah,” Unus sighed. “Okay campers, let’s all stand in a circle. Go back to where the tents used to be.”

All the campers pushed themselves to their feet and shuffled along back to the clearing. Remus hauled Janus upright. Logan nearly slipped into the creek bed, but Patton caught his hand. Roman kept his arm around Virgil’s shoulders as their group walked back to where their tents had been set up before they dismantled them.

The campers all gathered in a circle. Unus, Annus, and Amy joined the circle, each one in different spots. Amy brought out a ball of yarn from seemingly nowhere.

She took a deep breath. “This last activity is something we decided to do last minute. Only the person holding the yarn can talk at a time. Once someone tosses the ball to you, wrap the end of the string around your hand, say your favourite memory during camp, and then throw the ball to someone else in the circle.” She unraveled part of the ball and wrapped the end of the string around her hand. “Mark, you can start.”

She threw the ball of yarn. Annus lunged forward to catch it. He fumbled with it, but he managed not to drop it.

“My favourite moment,” he said. “I think... the campers won’t get this, but I was editing a video, and I put it up on the Unus Annus channel, and I remember seeing it click for people. I saw all the work that I put into that, the work that _we_ put into that, and suddenly people got it. Amy was there, actually. I was looking at the response to it and it made me happy.” He glanced around the circle. “Let’s go with a camper. Uh... sweater vest kid. Emile.”

Annus tossed the ball, yarn trailing behind it, connected to his hand. The kid he’d thrown it to fumbled with the yarn.

The yarn was passed around the circle, each camper smiling as they recounted their favourite moments, or wiping away tears they were too afraid to shed. Each one held a part of the yarn, slowly forming a web of yarn in the middle of the circle. Then someone passed it to Patton.

He yelped as he nearly dropped it. He twirled the string in his fingers as he thought. “Oh goodness, there’s so much to choose from. I think... I think my favourite part of camp was during that first night. That night was weird, I admit, but it was interesting. And after we all went back to our tents, I was actually a little scared about whether or not there really was a bear outside. Roman helped calm me down. He told me stories and ranted about books he read until I fell asleep again.” He sniffled. “I appreciated that a lot. There aren’t a lot of people in my life who would stay up at night and do something like that for me.” He gave a sad smile to Roman. “Thank you.” He wiped at his eyes with his free hand. “Ugh. Anyway... Let’s go with Logan.”

He threw the ball of yarn. It hit the ground and rolled under the web of string connecting the circle. Everyone raised their arms to lift the web and let Logan scurry under it to grab the ball.

He went back to his place in the circle, wrapping the end of the yarn around his fingers. “It’s hard to figure out just one favourite moment. There were many. But I think my biggest favourite moment was just last night when Remus asked me to tell him about space. It was a small thing, but in all honesty, it meant so much to me. I haven’t ever met another kid who was curious about the things I’m interested in.” He cleared his throat. “Also, Remus, I’m sorry I almost broke your spine by pulling you out of the tree on the second day.” He threw the yarn to Remus.

Remus jumped up and caught it. “Hoo, boy. Favourite moment.” He wrapped a fair amount of yarn around his hand. “Let’s see... Well, my team absolutely destroyed Roman in that tug of war. That was fun.”

Roman stuck out his tongue from across the circle. Remus snickered and turned the ball of yarn in his hands. “Okay, I’ll be serious. But my favourite moment was actually the team building activities.” His smile faded. “I don’t have a lot of friends other than Roman. But I got to be in a group with people and work together and have fun, and that’s not something I get to do often. I’m really glad that happened. I’m glad I got Logan for a buddy, even though he might have gotten a little sick of my shit after a while. He knows a lot about things, and I like learning about things, so it’s a win-win. And being around Janus and Virgil and Patton has expanded my group of friends already.” He took a shaky breath. “I’m really glad I came here.” He smirked. “Roman.”

He chucked the ball hard. Roman ducked so it wouldn’t hit him in the head. He glared at Remus, but he was grinning. He grabbed the yarn and twisted some of it around his hand.

“I might have to agree with Remus,” Roman admitted. “The team building was fun. Patton has been amazing to be in a tent with, Logan and Janus don’t hesitate to call me out on my bullshit, and Virgil has been an absolute delight,” he said, shooting a grin in Virgil’s direction. “I don’t have a lot of friends either, so I’m happy I got to meet more people. I know I pretend not to care a lot of the time, but I do care. A lot. Losing to Virgil at tug of war was fun. Hell, it was even fun when he tripped me a dozen times during the sack race. No matter what we were all doing, I enjoyed it.” He smiled at Virgil. “Virge.”

He tossed the yarn. Virgil’s heart skipped a beat and he ducked automatically. The ball rolled and he hurried after it. He wracked his brain for something to say as he rushed back to his spot. What could he say?

Then he thought of something while he was wrapping some string around his fingers. “My favourite moments were in between activities, when Janus was teaching me how to make bracelets. I’m still not great at it, but at least I tried. I was already nervous about being here, but Janus made the effort to spend time with me and show me something he enjoyed. It meant a lot, even though it probably wasn’t a big deal to him.” Virgil’s face heated up from embarrassment. Janus would probably think he was weird for talking about that. He shoved his embarrassment aside and tossed the ball. “Janus.”

Janus caught it easily. “I have to admit, that was probably my favourite part of camp, too. I don’t get to share things I enjoy with other people. The fact that Virgil was willing to listen and participate...” A smile spread across his face. “It was refreshing, to say the least. I appreciate that Virgil was willing to let me talk.” He glanced around the circle. “Well, I suppose Unus is the last one.”

Unus caught the ball. “Favourite moment,” he muttered, wrapping the string around his hand. “God, that’s a tough one to think about. I think my favourite moment, even though it wasn’t technically a part of the lifespan of Unus Annus, was that walk.” He made eye contact with Annus when he said that. “The walk that we went on before this all began. It was just the shared passion and shared excitement for something. We were so on the same page and we were just so amped about starting this. We were so excited to start. It was a big endeavour to take on, but we did it. And we did it. We fuckin’ did it.” He smiled. “And back to Amy.”

He tossed the ball of yarn across the circle. Amy leaned forward to catch it. “My favourite moment,” she said, “was when the three of us and Evan were hanging out just last night, sitting on the porch of the cabin and looking at the stars, after we finished filming some videos. It was a nice moment. And I’m the last one.”

She tore the string off the ball of yarn. “When you all came here, almost none of you knew each other. Now we’re all here, connected by the memories we’ve made. And even once those connections are torn when we all go our separate ways, we’ll still have our own little pieces of the time we spent and the potential to remake those connections. Everybody step back and pull on your piece of yarn until it snaps.”

Everyone in the circle took a step back. The yarn around Virgil’s hand dug into his skin. He grimaced, but he pulled.

The string connecting him to Janus snapped. Virgil saw Roman’s string between him and Remus snap, which left just the piece connecting the two of them. Roman grinned, and Virgil couldn’t help but mirror it as they played a short game of tug-of-war with their string. It finally snapped. They both stumbled backwards, their own pieces of yarn in their hands.

The sound of a bus horn honking met Virgil’s ears, and the counselors looked up. “Bus is here,” Annus called, twisting his piece of yarn around his wrist. “Everyone get your stuff and we’ll get going.”

The campers fell back into their friend groups as they all started for the pile of luggage near the road. Janus stuck close to Virgil as they walked. Virgil and Logan sat together on the bus. Roman and Remus sat behind them while Patton and Janus sat in front.

The counselors passed a jar of pickles around the bus during the drive home. They put that vocal warmup CD back on and loudly sang along, which was too loud for everyone else to ignore, so many of the campers ended up singing, too. None of them really knew the words, since it was a vocal warmup and not an actual song that anyone would willingly listen to, but everyone sang anyway. Even Virgil and Janus, although neither of them could hear each other over Roman belting out the words like it was a Broadway performance.

Someone passed Virgil the jar of pickles. He took one and offered the jar to Logan. He shook his head with a disgusted scrunch of his nose.

Virgil passed the jar along and munched on the pickle. He usually hated the loudness of dozens of other kids yelling at once, but surprisingly, he didn’t mind right now.

He peered at the seat behind him. Patton was singing just about as loud as Roman and Remus, but Janus was simply humming along, legs crossed as he sat back in his seat. He glanced up when he saw Virgil.

Virgil held out his right hand, palm out. “Hey, can I have your hand for a sec?”

Janus furrowed his brow, but he laced his fingers with Virgil’s. Virgil rolled up his sleeve, revealing a colourful bracelet on bright yellow string. Most of the beads were black and white, but a few yellow beads in the middle of the others spelled out “MCRMY”. He rolled it down his arm and onto Janus’s, where it settled among the dozen other kandi bracelets Janus kept on his left arm. It was a bit loose. Virgil hadn’t been able to figure out how to make the bracelet the exact size he wanted. 

Janus stared at the bracelet like it was made of solid gold. “Virgil,” he whispered. “You made me a bracelet?”

“Yeah. It took a while because I’m not great at it, but I tried. Do you like it?”

Janus smiled, and for once it wasn’t a crooked smirk or a devious grin. It was a genuine smile. “I love it.” He let go of Virgil’s hand and held up his other one. “Gimme your other hand.”

Virgil held out his left arm. Janus interlocked their fingers and searched through the bracelets on his right arm. He found one covered in purple beads and rolled it onto Virgil’s arm.

Virgil looked down at the bracelet. The string was black, the beads alternating purple and white. Black beads spelled out “KILLJOY” in the middle of the others. It fit a little loose on his wrist, big enough that it would fit perfectly when he grew.

Virgil couldn’t help the smile that grew across his face. “We both made MCR bracelets.”

Janus gave Virgil’s hand a squeeze. “Well, I knew you liked My Chemical Romance. Figured I’d make something you would like.”

“I love it, Jan. Thank you.”

The music over the intercom cut off. The campers stopped singing and looked to the front of the bus, where Annus stood with his megaphone.

“We’re just about at the drop off point,” he sighed through the megaphone. “I just want everyone to know that this has been an amazing journey and I’m so grateful I got to do this with all of you. I know I should say something profound here, but I don’t have any pretty words left. All that’s left is the feeling. I’m never at a loss for words, but right now, I’ve said everything. There’s nothing left to say.”

“Time will never stop,” Unus’s voice said over the intercom. “There is only going forward, never backward. We all have a limited amount of time left. Unus Annus means ‘one year’ in Latin. You can rewrite the entire history of your life in one year. Don’t let that time go to waste.”

The bus slowed to a stop and parked. A rush of sadness washed over Virgil when he realized it was time to go. He wasn’t ready. The drive to camp had felt so long. Why did the drive back home have to feel so short?

He slid out of his seat and grabbed his backpack. Everyone else followed suit.

Once outside the bus, campers began to say their goodbyes. Many of them cried, and it took Virgil a moment to realize that there were tears in his eyes, too. He also realized that he was still holding Janus’s hand, but he didn’t let go.

Patton sniffled. “I’m gonna miss you guys,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

Remus nodded. “Me too.”

Logan cleared his throat. “I will admit, I may miss the company of the five of you. It was refreshing to be in the presence of people who actually seem to care about what I have to say.” He scanned the parking lot. “I... I actually don’t even think my parents are here. Did they not get the memo that they’re supposed to pick me up?”

A car honked. Roman and Remus both looked up. “Mom’s here,” Roman sighed. “Here’s hoping we don’t crash on the way home.”

“Wait!” Patton grabbed Roman’s arm and brought out a marker. He scribbled a string of numbers on the back of Roman’s hand. “This is my home phone number. Call sometime. Maybe our parents can set up a playdate. This goes for you too, Remus.”

Remus blinked as Patton moved from Roman to Remus with his marker to write his phone number on Remus’s hand. “Thanks.”

Patton smiled, eyes watery with tears. “I’m going to miss you guys.”

Roman’s shoulders slumped. “Aww, don’t cry, Pat. You’ll make me cry.”

He wrapped Patton in a hug, and Patton started bawling. He tugged Remus into the hug. Remus stared into space, face flushed with embarrassment. He must not have been used to affection.

Janus plucked the marker from Patton’s hand and scrawled his own number on Roman’s arm. “Call me sometime. Perhaps we can all hang out together.”

He passed the marker to Logan, who wrote his number on Remus’s arm. “I look forward to hearing from you both,” Logan stated, his voice as flat as ever, but Virgil caught him wiping away a tear under his glasses.

Virgil took the marker next and wrote his number on Roman’s arm. As an afterthought, he took Janus’s hand again and wrote it on the back of Janus’s hand. “Call sometime.”

Janus blinked at the numbers on his hand. “I will.” Tears welled up in his eyes and he wiped them away. “I... thank you, Virgil. I’m glad you were my camp buddy.”

Virgil tried to say something back, but all that came out of his mouth was a sob. He sniffled. He didn’t want to go.

Janus pulled him into a hug. Virgil peeked over Janus’s shoulder to see Logan standing awkwardly nearby, shuffling his feet on the ground. Virgil reached out and grabbed Logan’s arm to pull him into the hug. Logan yelped in surprise, but he hugged Virgil and Janus back.

Patton glanced over at them and let out a sob. He dragged Roman and Remus over to the other three so they were all stuck in one giant group hug, Virgil and Janus in the middle of it. Virgil squeezed Janus tight. He didn’t want to go yet.

A car honked. “Yeah, we’re coming, Mom!” Remus shouted. He and Roman gently untangled themselves from the embrace. “We have to go. We’ll see you guys sometime, okay?”

Patton blubbered out a goodbye. Logan, Janus, and Virgil waved. The twins kept glancing back, even as they climbed into their mom’s car. As they drove away, they rolled down the window and shouted their goodbyes.

“Kiddo, it’s time to go!” a man’s voice yelled.

Patton sniffled. “That’s my dad,” he muttered. He gave the other three a squeeze, and the breath left Virgil’s lungs in a sharp burst. Goodness, Patton was strong.

Patton let them go and hefted his backpack. He ran off towards a car, waving at the others. He was still crying as he climbed into his dad’s vehicle and drove away.

Janus glanced around the parking lot. “Ugh, my parents are here.” He hugged Logan and Virgil. “I’m really glad I met you all. Virgil, I’ll call you.”

Virgil sniffed and nodded, unable to make any words come out. He gave Janus one last hug. Janus gave the two of them a soft smile and walked off. Virgil watched him approach a dull grey car where two adults stood in dull grey business suits. Janus’s bright neon skirt and colourful bracelets stood out. It was hard to believe Janus came from such a boring looking family.

Logan sighed. “My parents still aren’t here,” he muttered. “They’re probably asleep or something.”

Virgil watched Janus’s car leave the lot as another one pulled in. “Mine are. Maybe we can give you a ride.”

Logan pushed his glasses up his nose. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” he said with a small smile. “Just don’t make me eat any more pickles during the drive.”

Virgil linked his arm with Logan’s and they started off to Virgil’s car together.

*******

Unus sighed. “Mark?”

“Yeah, Ethan?”

“How long do we have left?”

Annus shrugged. “About ninety days, give or take. November 13 will be here before we know it. Then we’ll be gone.”

“We had one year. Do you think we did okay?”

“Only time will tell.”

Amy stepped off the bus, video camera in hand. She watched the emo kid and his junior professor friend walk off through the parking lot.

She smiled. “I think we did great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything the six main characters talked about is stuff that i relate to. on the day Unus Annus was deleted, i went on instagram andsaw a post in my feed that wasn't related to Unus Annus, talking about the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy colliding and how small we are in the grand scheme of things. i thought that was a very Logan-ish way of thinking. Patton and Janus's discussion about the meaning of life is something i've decided for myself, that i just need to enjoy everything as much as i can while helping others enjoy life. as for Remus, i got my ear pierced the day before the channel was deleted. my sister nearly swerved into another car. i could have gotten hit and i wouldn't have been there to see the end of Unus Annus. and for Roman and Virgil, i do feel like i can't get everything done in the span of my lifetime. part of it is that i don't think i have enough time, and part of it is my anxiety holding me back. i'm going to write as much as i can and hopefully leave my mark on the world before my time.
> 
> it's weird shit to think about.
> 
> at summer camp, we did the yarn tossing activity on the last day before we went home. we called it the Web of Friendship. i thought it would be an interesting activity to have these guys do for the last chapter. it was really just me projecting my sadness over the death of Unus Annus onto these kids and having them talk about their memories with each other and the camp. 
> 
> i know the last chapter of this random ass crack fic got a little existential, but that's kind of the point of Unus Annus, i guess. i've written something fun and now it's over. i hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Memento Mori
> 
> Unus Annus

**Author's Note:**

> comments and feedback are always appreciated, i don't often write crack-ish fics like this so i'd be happy to hear what you think!


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